The best hope the Conservatives now have is to ride out the storm and hope it has blown through by 2024.
It's probably too late now to save things by ditching the oaf at the top. The more he ramps up the culture wars and whips the Daily Mail into propaganda, the more hardened but smaller their voter base will become. We've seen this all before and it NEVER works.
Prepare for a landslide defeat.
the Horror that is Woke
It's really little wonder that you and I dislike each other!
I note that Australia has just booted out the right. I suspect, fairly strongly, that voters are turning left as usually happens during an economic downturn which the Right have failed to stem.
The cost of living crisis is going to do for the Conservatives but the likelihood, or inevitability according to the Telegraph, of recession will really screw them. Hence why I think a landslide defeat is on the cards.
Appealing to culture wars in a time of economic crisis is a well-worn tactic. It might have worked in Germany in the 1930s but recent history suggests it won't now.
The only caution I would make is that a RMT rail strike led by 3 Putin apologists paralysing the country would play into Boris's hands (or whoever is conservative leader) and at the same time Rishi comes to his senses and delivers a fair and sensible package of measures to address some of the worst effects of our current col crisis could well change the narrative
Yes I totally agree with you about this.
As a Left-leaner the thought of a national rail strike fills me with political dread, for the very reason you suggest.
It could play right into Boris' hands.
The problem is that the three RMT leaders are Putin apologists and easily identified as such therefore providing a gift to Boris and a nightmare for labour
Is this true or are you merely repeating some tripe you read in the Daily Mail?
It maybe true, but that won't get the workers to vote to strike. A 2% payrise and 9% inflation will. In some ways a return to the Seventies, where some union leaders were marxists, but the workers just wanted to improve their living standards and incomes.
That all ended well for lots of them , especially miners. Followed donkeys to the bitter end.
Burn down the Student Loans Company. They're too stupid to exist.
--> Email to me to support Middle Child's continued student finance. That's fine, no problem.
-> Please log in with email address and password. No problem.
-> "What is your secret answer?" To WHAT?
Like - so, you asked me years ago a question when Eldest Daughter started out and I gave an answer - but it's considered polite to give a clue as to WHAT THE BLOODY QUESTION WAS!!!
Mother' maiden name didn't work Dream job as a child didn't work Town of birth didn't work.
GIVE ME A SODDING CLUE YOU MORONS!
Solution: Keepass
I never understand the point of "secret questions" as a lot of the time they just create GDPR or security problems if answered truthfully.
I always give a long nonsense answer and note it down (encrypted).
Lively on here this morning, so just to lighten the mood how about a quick quiz?
Which of the following is the biggest threat to western civilisation as we know it? Is it: a) Putin apologists / the RMT b) The Woke c) The BBC e) All of the above?
I miss the days when I could have included d) Meghan Markle, but she seems to have slipped off the radar now - hence no d).
Burn down the Student Loans Company. They're too stupid to exist.
--> Email to me to support Middle Child's continued student finance. That's fine, no problem.
-> Please log in with email address and password. No problem.
-> "What is your secret answer?" To WHAT?
Like - so, you asked me years ago a question when Eldest Daughter started out and I gave an answer - but it's considered polite to give a clue as to WHAT THE BLOODY QUESTION WAS!!!
Mother' maiden name didn't work Dream job as a child didn't work Town of birth didn't work.
GIVE ME A SODDING CLUE YOU MORONS!
Name of first pet ?
Good thought. Just tried - nope.
I mean, can't fault them for successfully keeping it mega-secure. No-one unauthorised is getting in. It's just that it's considered sporting to allow the account owner to log in. Especially when you've emailed them asking them to log in.
It is a cunning twist on the secret question --> secret answer method. Omit the question.
I did have a number of very difficult exams back in the day, but I can confidently say that an exam where they didn't bother with the questions and still expected very specific answers would have beaten the lot. Could arguably have been seen as unfair, however.
It's that time of year in the garden when the young fluff-ball tawny owls have left the nest and spend all night squeaking. And all day snoozing....
We have 5 young foxes playing in the garden. It seems a wheelbarrow full of cut daffodils and bluebells are great fun.
We used to feed foxes regularly (our very tolerant landlord next door said he'd had to repair the fence because they keep digging under it to get to the goodies) and one day were rewarded by the of a whole family of five lazing in the garden sun. It's an image I'll always treasure.
Thanks to both of you for the pictures - makes a nice change from anonymous posters arguing about each other's attitudes.
Burn down the Student Loans Company. They're too stupid to exist.
--> Email to me to support Middle Child's continued student finance. That's fine, no problem.
-> Please log in with email address and password. No problem.
-> "What is your secret answer?" To WHAT?
Like - so, you asked me years ago a question when Eldest Daughter started out and I gave an answer - but it's considered polite to give a clue as to WHAT THE BLOODY QUESTION WAS!!!
Mother' maiden name didn't work Dream job as a child didn't work Town of birth didn't work.
Burn down the Student Loans Company. They're too stupid to exist.
--> Email to me to support Middle Child's continued student finance. That's fine, no problem.
-> Please log in with email address and password. No problem.
-> "What is your secret answer?" To WHAT?
Like - so, you asked me years ago a question when Eldest Daughter started out and I gave an answer - but it's considered polite to give a clue as to WHAT THE BLOODY QUESTION WAS!!!
Mother' maiden name didn't work Dream job as a child didn't work Town of birth didn't work.
Lively on here this morning, so just to lighten the mood how about a quick quiz?
Which of the following is the biggest threat to western civilisation as we know it? Is it: a) Putin apologists / the RMT b) The Woke c) The BBC e) All of the above?
I miss the days when I could have included d) Meghan Markle, but she seems to have slipped off the radar now - hence no d).
Burn down the Student Loans Company. They're too stupid to exist.
--> Email to me to support Middle Child's continued student finance. That's fine, no problem.
-> Please log in with email address and password. No problem.
-> "What is your secret answer?" To WHAT?
Like - so, you asked me years ago a question when Eldest Daughter started out and I gave an answer - but it's considered polite to give a clue as to WHAT THE BLOODY QUESTION WAS!!!
Mother' maiden name didn't work Dream job as a child didn't work Town of birth didn't work.
GIVE ME A SODDING CLUE YOU MORONS!
Hope this helps but for us the secret answer was the road you lived in when you were 10. As it is for both of us it might be the question for all.
I posted the other day I like chopping wood when frustrated and having dealt with them I needed a forest. Since then it had got more frustrating. I have only just had to deal with them because my wife retired and as I am already retired we have gone from a high income (so little dealing with them) to next to nothing. We have to prove our income and some of what they want is impossible. They just cater for the norm and not people who have less normal income.
The best hope the Conservatives now have is to ride out the storm and hope it has blown through by 2024.
It's probably too late now to save things by ditching the oaf at the top. The more he ramps up the culture wars and whips the Daily Mail into propaganda, the more hardened but smaller their voter base will become. We've seen this all before and it NEVER works.
Prepare for a landslide defeat.
the Horror that is Woke
It's really little wonder that you and I dislike each other!
I note that Australia has just booted out the right. I suspect, fairly strongly, that voters are turning left as usually happens during an economic downturn which the Right have failed to stem.
The cost of living crisis is going to do for the Conservatives but the likelihood, or inevitability according to the Telegraph, of recession will really screw them. Hence why I think a landslide defeat is on the cards.
Appealing to culture wars in a time of economic crisis is a well-worn tactic. It might have worked in Germany in the 1930s but recent history suggests it won't now.
The only caution I would make is that a RMT rail strike led by 3 Putin apologists paralysing the country would play into Boris's hands (or whoever is conservative leader) and at the same time Rishi comes to his senses and delivers a fair and sensible package of measures to address some of the worst effects of our current col crisis could well change the narrative
Yes I totally agree with you about this.
As a Left-leaner the thought of a national rail strike fills me with political dread, for the very reason you suggest.
It could play right into Boris' hands.
A true left leaner would support the RMT standing up for the 2,500 safety critical employees threatened with dismissal and dedicated rail staff who have been offered a wage increase that is effectively a massive pay cut. If there is a strike it is due to management failing to engage. The RMT want a fair solution.
Morning Taz. I was surprised to read yesterday that on Scotrail , once qualified and past probation period train drivers get 48K and Doctor's once qualified get 40K. Doctors may have advantages later but it seems from that to me at least that train drivers are not badly paid.
Good morning Malc. Hope all is well with you.
Yes, rail drivers are well recompensed although they have to spend quite a bit of time training for it before being able to drive solo. The husband of one of my wife’s co workers is currently training to be a metro driver in the north east. It’s around 2 years to train.
Tube drivers are very well recompensed too.
However the drivers are a small portion of the workers employed in rail and represented by the RMT.
I hope they can come to an agreement without resorting to strike action.
The best hope the Conservatives now have is to ride out the storm and hope it has blown through by 2024.
It's probably too late now to save things by ditching the oaf at the top. The more he ramps up the culture wars and whips the Daily Mail into propaganda, the more hardened but smaller their voter base will become. We've seen this all before and it NEVER works.
Prepare for a landslide defeat.
the Horror that is Woke
It's really little wonder that you and I dislike each other!
I note that Australia has just booted out the right. I suspect, fairly strongly, that voters are turning left as usually happens during an economic downturn which the Right have failed to stem.
The cost of living crisis is going to do for the Conservatives but the likelihood, or inevitability according to the Telegraph, of recession will really screw them. Hence why I think a landslide defeat is on the cards.
Appealing to culture wars in a time of economic crisis is a well-worn tactic. It might have worked in Germany in the 1930s but recent history suggests it won't now.
Yes you're on the Woke left and I'm on the non-Woke right, but for all your loudly avowed good intentions and self-regarding progressive values, the weird thing is that I am obviously nicer than you
eg there is no way I would join the board of a morning and make some random, tiny, aimless yet spiteful aside about a poster not even present. Simply wouldn't occur to me. Not in my nature.
Yet it is in yours. Something to ponder, I suggest
It's typical of the Woke.
They are actually rather nasty and unpleasant (and secretly hate themselves for it) so wear the Wokery as a public cloak to make themselves feel better and communicate what they'd like others to think about them.
Doesn't work, of course - because they know it's vacuous and insincere.
This is absolutely true and completely accords with my experience
For the purposes of clarity and kindness, this is not aimed at @Heathener - I simply don't know her well enough to say anything serious about her - but yes, the Woke-iest people I know in real life are often the nastiest. Bitchy, resentful, humourless, with a tendency to supercilious preaching and, if they can get away with it, bullying
This is one reason why Wokeness is so corrosive and aggressive and gets such a strong reaction. It is often pressed by the most annoying types: they would have been the hectoring, ultra-conservative prudes in Victorian times
This is also a reason why the Trans-Terf wars are so vicious, they are prosecuted by the Woke on both sides, so they try and bully each other. Ugly
I have a primary client at the moment is precisely like this.
A deeply unpleasant and self-obsessed woman who spends all her time briefing heavily against others behind their backs and creating a toxic environment - she is entirely untrustworthy and absolutely a bully - whilst brandishing her credentials for every national/international day for this and that under the sun all over LinkedIn.
My wife, shrewd as she is, continually points out to me that this means she has deep-seated insecurities and issues - not those who she targets.
Your wife is right and we all come across people like this. Nothing to do with wokeness and all to do with insecurity as your wife says.
I do think you have gone over the top re @Heathener this morning. Done the same myself with others in the past so not a criticism, just saying.
I haven't gone over the top at all.
My comment wasn't directed at anyone but rather the Woke in general. It was in response to one that was but that's quite a different thing.
It some have responded to take it personally then that says quite a lot about them, in my view.
You can't dehumanise someone and then get upset when you're called out on it.
Woah. I haven't dehumanised anyone and there's nothing to be "called out" on. My comment is an entirely reasonable one and I stand by it.
This is simply the left-wing herd rallying to defend one of their own because they think they've been targeted and have been triggered by the use of the word Woke.
What's wrong with being woke? As far as I am aware it means being aware of other people with their plusses and minuses and issues.
I spent 30+ years in a school environment where bullying was a big ongoing issue. It usually existed because there were two types of students, a group who were different, or had "issues", such as ADHD or aspergers, or home issues. The other type were students who bullied them due to their differences. We spent many years trying and succeeding sometimes in getting the bullies to become aware of other people and their problems, sometimes called tolerence. I suppose you could call that becoming more woke. Those who never accepted or became tolerent were the worst kind of bully. There are a lot of people like that on here.
I would never take it as an insult to be called woke.
Edit: I should have said 3 types, the third type had nothing to do with bullying.
I'm convinced the same people who lecture people on holding the correct Woke attitudes today would have been the most conservative and religious people in, say, Victorian times. Their beliefs change over the generations, but their hectoring and lecturing doesn't.
Do you consider it woke/lecturing/hectoring when the government and others tells businesses and people that they must work from the office?
On the topic of nature and wildlife, I was delighted the other day to find an Early Purple orchid (orchis mascula). It was growing all by itself, so far as I could tell, in a shady and damp bank underneath hanging branches and in a place few would walk. Really beautiful.
I spotted a Long-eared owl this time last year which I think is one of my rarest UK sightings. I suppose the Golden Eagle in the Highlands was rarer still.
What is the rarest flora or fauna to have been sighted by others in the UK?
For me, perhaps what must have been a Minke Whale sounding near our yacht in the Sound of Eigg.
Egyptian Goose also comer to think of that (though the last was nesting about 2m from the visitor centre shop at Rutland Water reserve).
Egyptian Geese? They're two a penny in London! Whether in Ilford's Valentine's Park or St James's Park in the city centre!
Okay Peter Scott I bow to your expertise! come to think of it you get Minke Whales, or at least got a single cetacean, in London and not just the Natural History Museum - but, unsurprisingly, its encounter with the metropolis left it in a dying and moribund condition.
Burn down the Student Loans Company. They're too stupid to exist.
--> Email to me to support Middle Child's continued student finance. That's fine, no problem.
-> Please log in with email address and password. No problem.
-> "What is your secret answer?" To WHAT?
Like - so, you asked me years ago a question when Eldest Daughter started out and I gave an answer - but it's considered polite to give a clue as to WHAT THE BLOODY QUESTION WAS!!!
Mother' maiden name didn't work Dream job as a child didn't work Town of birth didn't work.
GIVE ME A SODDING CLUE YOU MORONS!
Name of first pet ?
Good thought. Just tried - nope.
I mean, can't fault them for successfully keeping it mega-secure. No-one unauthorised is getting in. It's just that it's considered sporting to allow the account owner to log in. Especially when you've emailed them asking them to log in.
It is a cunning twist on the secret question --> secret answer method. Omit the question.
I did have a number of very difficult exams back in the day, but I can confidently say that an exam where they didn't bother with the questions and still expected very specific answers would have beaten the lot. Could arguably have been seen as unfair, however.
There's the classic apocryphal philosophy exam:
Q: Is this a question? A: If that is a question, then this is an answer.
Anyway: First school? First car?
By the time you've finished they'll be able to log in to all your bank accounts.
I'm convinced the same people who lecture people on holding the correct Woke attitudes today would have been the most conservative and religious people in, say, Victorian times. Their beliefs change over the generations, but their hectoring and lecturing doesn't.
Hectoring is always tiresome. But anti-woke hectoring is common too, and in electoral terms can be just as off-putting. This quote from an Australian Liberal MP may give pause for thought to some Tories here:
"Morrisonism is economic populism and culture wars – that was poison for us in the city. We’ve got to return to economic rationalism and social liberalism."
Fundamentally, most people want (a) a decent standard of living and (b) enough social concern that they feel comfortable about their government. We all differ in the details, but if politicians veer off into obsessing about woke or anti-woke attitudes, most of us just switch off. Moreover, I don't think there is anything like a majority for aggressive reactionary attitudes. The overwhelming British attitude today is "live and let live" - applying to minorities, trans people, believers in different religions and anyone else. In the election debates, if Keir says "I want to improve your standard of living" and Boris says "Haha, he can't even definie a woman", Boris isn't going to come out of it well.
However if the Liberals went too far back in favour of economic conservatives and social liberalism, a la Malcolm Turnbull or David Cameron, they would face a surge in the One Nation vote, the UKIP of Australia, in outer suburbs and rural areas and small towns even if they won back upper middle class voters from Independents in wealthy inner city areas. One Nation was already up 2% from 2019 to 5% yesterday on the primary vote
You've got to pick up transfers. You don't have to here.
Malcolm Turnbull ran on an economically and socially liberal platform in the 2016 Australian general election as Liberal leader and PM. He got just 50.36% after transfers, less than the 53.49% Tony Abbott got in 2013 and the 51.53% Scott Morrison got in 2019 on a more populist conservative platform, even if more than the 47.6% Morrison got yesterday
The best hope the Conservatives now have is to ride out the storm and hope it has blown through by 2024.
It's probably too late now to save things by ditching the oaf at the top. The more he ramps up the culture wars and whips the Daily Mail into propaganda, the more hardened but smaller their voter base will become. We've seen this all before and it NEVER works.
Prepare for a landslide defeat.
the Horror that is Woke
It's really little wonder that you and I dislike each other!
I note that Australia has just booted out the right. I suspect, fairly strongly, that voters are turning left as usually happens during an economic downturn which the Right have failed to stem.
The cost of living crisis is going to do for the Conservatives but the likelihood, or inevitability according to the Telegraph, of recession will really screw them. Hence why I think a landslide defeat is on the cards.
Appealing to culture wars in a time of economic crisis is a well-worn tactic. It might have worked in Germany in the 1930s but recent history suggests it won't now.
Yes you're on the Woke left and I'm on the non-Woke right, but for all your loudly avowed good intentions and self-regarding progressive values, the weird thing is that I am obviously nicer than you
eg there is no way I would join the board of a morning and make some random, tiny, aimless yet spiteful aside about a poster not even present. Simply wouldn't occur to me. Not in my nature.
Yet it is in yours. Something to ponder, I suggest
It's typical of the Woke.
They are actually rather nasty and unpleasant (and secretly hate themselves for it) so wear the Wokery as a public cloak to make themselves feel better and communicate what they'd like others to think about them.
Doesn't work, of course - because they know it's vacuous and insincere.
This is absolutely true and completely accords with my experience
For the purposes of clarity and kindness, this is not aimed at @Heathener - I simply don't know her well enough to say anything serious about her - but yes, the Woke-iest people I know in real life are often the nastiest. Bitchy, resentful, humourless, with a tendency to supercilious preaching and, if they can get away with it, bullying
This is one reason why Wokeness is so corrosive and aggressive and gets such a strong reaction. It is often pressed by the most annoying types: they would have been the hectoring, ultra-conservative prudes in Victorian times
This is also a reason why the Trans-Terf wars are so vicious, they are prosecuted by the Woke on both sides, so they try and bully each other. Ugly
I have a primary client at the moment is precisely like this.
A deeply unpleasant and self-obsessed woman who spends all her time briefing heavily against others behind their backs and creating a toxic environment - she is entirely untrustworthy and absolutely a bully - whilst brandishing her credentials for every national/international day for this and that under the sun all over LinkedIn.
My wife, shrewd as she is, continually points out to me that this means she has deep-seated insecurities and issues - not those who she targets.
Your wife is right and we all come across people like this. Nothing to do with wokeness and all to do with insecurity as your wife says.
I do think you have gone over the top re @Heathener this morning. Done the same myself with others in the past so not a criticism, just saying.
I haven't gone over the top at all.
My comment wasn't directed at anyone but rather the Woke in general. It was in response to one that was but that's quite a different thing.
It some have responded to take it personally then that says quite a lot about them, in my view.
You can't dehumanise someone and then get upset when you're called out on it.
Woah. I haven't dehumanised anyone and there's nothing to be "called out" on. My comment is an entirely reasonable one and I stand by it.
This is simply the left-wing herd rallying to defend one of their own because they think they've been targeted and have been triggered by the use of the word Woke.
What's wrong with being woke? As far as I am aware it means being aware of other people with their plusses and minuses and issues.
I spent 30+ years in a school environment where bullying was a big ongoing issue. It usually existed because there were two types of students, a group who were different, or had "issues", such as ADHD or aspergers, or home issues. The other type were students who bullied them due to their differences. We spent many years trying and succeeding sometimes in getting the bullies to become aware of other people and their problems, sometimes called tolerence. I suppose you could call that becoming more woke. Those who never accepted or became tolerent were the worst kind of bully. There are a lot of people like that on here.
I would never take it as an insult to be called woke.
Edit: I should have said 3 types, the third type had nothing to do with bullying.
We were talking yesterday about equality and diversity training at universities. Some of the course I was on was quite simply to make clear to new students (and tbf all new staff, adult volunteers, etc.) that precisely that sort of playground behaviour would not be tolerated. Especially when the youngsters are off the leash, under pressure themselves, and meeting other people with backgrounds and problems they'd never encountered.
Of course, such courses and the people who organise, implement and track them are regularly decried in the right wing media as woke.
I'm convinced the same people who lecture people on holding the correct Woke attitudes today would have been the most conservative and religious people in, say, Victorian times. Their beliefs change over the generations, but their hectoring and lecturing doesn't.
Do you consider it woke/lecturing/hectoring when the government and others tells businesses and people that they must work from the office?
Lively on here this morning, so just to lighten the mood how about a quick quiz?
Which of the following is the biggest threat to western civilisation as we know it? Is it: a) Putin apologists / the RMT b) The Woke c) The BBC e) All of the above?
I miss the days when I could have included d) Meghan Markle, but she seems to have slipped off the radar now - hence no d).
Burn down the Student Loans Company. They're too stupid to exist.
--> Email to me to support Middle Child's continued student finance. That's fine, no problem.
-> Please log in with email address and password. No problem.
-> "What is your secret answer?" To WHAT?
Like - so, you asked me years ago a question when Eldest Daughter started out and I gave an answer - but it's considered polite to give a clue as to WHAT THE BLOODY QUESTION WAS!!!
Mother' maiden name didn't work Dream job as a child didn't work Town of birth didn't work.
GIVE ME A SODDING CLUE YOU MORONS!
Name of first pet ?
Good thought. Just tried - nope.
I mean, can't fault them for successfully keeping it mega-secure. No-one unauthorised is getting in. It's just that it's considered sporting to allow the account owner to log in. Especially when you've emailed them asking them to log in.
It is a cunning twist on the secret question --> secret answer method. Omit the question.
I did have a number of very difficult exams back in the day, but I can confidently say that an exam where they didn't bother with the questions and still expected very specific answers would have beaten the lot. Could arguably have been seen as unfair, however.
There's the classic apocryphal philosophy exam:
Q: Is this a question? A: If that is a question, then this is an answer.
Anyway: First school? First car?
By the time you've finished they'll be able to log in to all your bank accounts.
Favourite colour and favourite flower are my pet hates, who aged over 6 has either?
I'm convinced the same people who lecture people on holding the correct Woke attitudes today would have been the most conservative and religious people in, say, Victorian times. Their beliefs change over the generations, but their hectoring and lecturing doesn't.
Hectoring is always tiresome. But anti-woke hectoring is common too, and in electoral terms can be just as off-putting. This quote from an Australian Liberal MP may give pause for thought to some Tories here:
"Morrisonism is economic populism and culture wars – that was poison for us in the city. We’ve got to return to economic rationalism and social liberalism."
Fundamentally, most people want (a) a decent standard of living and (b) enough social concern that they feel comfortable about their government. We all differ in the details, but if politicians veer off into obsessing about woke or anti-woke attitudes, most of us just switch off. Moreover, I don't think there is anything like a majority for aggressive reactionary attitudes. The overwhelming British attitude today is "live and let live" - applying to minorities, trans people, believers in different religions and anyone else. In the election debates, if Keir says "I want to improve your standard of living" and Boris says "Haha, he can't even definie a woman", Boris isn't going to come out of it well.
However if the Liberals went too far back in favour of economic conservatives and social liberalism, a la Malcolm Turnbull or David Cameron, they would face a surge in the One Nation vote, the UKIP of Australia, in outer suburbs and rural areas and small towns even if they won back upper middle class voters from Independents in wealthy inner city areas. One Nation was already up 2% from 2019 to 5% yesterday on the primary vote
You've got to pick up transfers. You don't have to here.
Malcolm Turnbull ran on an economically and socially liberal platform in the 2016 Australian general election as Liberal leader and PM. He got just 50.36% after transfers, less than the 53.49% Tony Abbott got in 2013 and the 51.53% Scott Morrison got in 2019 on a more populist conservative platform, even if more than the 47.6% Morrison got yesterday
Trouble with politics is the question remains the same, but the answer changes over time. It's a bit like the secret question, but it's a secret answer. After the election, the correct answer is obvious. It isn't always beforehand. Giving the electorate an identical answer twice in a row rarely works.
Burn down the Student Loans Company. They're too stupid to exist.
--> Email to me to support Middle Child's continued student finance. That's fine, no problem.
-> Please log in with email address and password. No problem.
-> "What is your secret answer?" To WHAT?
Like - so, you asked me years ago a question when Eldest Daughter started out and I gave an answer - but it's considered polite to give a clue as to WHAT THE BLOODY QUESTION WAS!!!
Mother' maiden name didn't work Dream job as a child didn't work Town of birth didn't work.
GIVE ME A SODDING CLUE YOU MORONS!
Name of first pet ?
Good thought. Just tried - nope.
I mean, can't fault them for successfully keeping it mega-secure. No-one unauthorised is getting in. It's just that it's considered sporting to allow the account owner to log in. Especially when you've emailed them asking them to log in.
It is a cunning twist on the secret question --> secret answer method. Omit the question.
I did have a number of very difficult exams back in the day, but I can confidently say that an exam where they didn't bother with the questions and still expected very specific answers would have beaten the lot. Could arguably have been seen as unfair, however.
There's the classic apocryphal philosophy exam:
Q: Is this a question? A: If that is a question, then this is an answer.
Anyway: First school? First car?
By the time you've finished they'll be able to log in to all your bank accounts.
I tried the reset thing again and when it got to the "give two characters from your secret answer in order to reset your secret answer" part, I just waited silently, they asked again, I lost my temper and ranted at an automated voice. I'm not proud, but somehow it worked: it patiently explained that the secret answer was the one I gave them when I registered (over a decade ago) and was the answer to the question "What is the name of the place where you first met your partner?"
I would not have guessed that in a thousand tries.
Now, I merely have to wait thirty minutes because I'm locked out of my account due to having answered too many incorrect attempts.
The best hope the Conservatives now have is to ride out the storm and hope it has blown through by 2024.
It's probably too late now to save things by ditching the oaf at the top. The more he ramps up the culture wars and whips the Daily Mail into propaganda, the more hardened but smaller their voter base will become. We've seen this all before and it NEVER works.
Prepare for a landslide defeat.
the Horror that is Woke
It's really little wonder that you and I dislike each other!
I note that Australia has just booted out the right. I suspect, fairly strongly, that voters are turning left as usually happens during an economic downturn which the Right have failed to stem.
The cost of living crisis is going to do for the Conservatives but the likelihood, or inevitability according to the Telegraph, of recession will really screw them. Hence why I think a landslide defeat is on the cards.
Appealing to culture wars in a time of economic crisis is a well-worn tactic. It might have worked in Germany in the 1930s but recent history suggests it won't now.
The only caution I would make is that a RMT rail strike led by 3 Putin apologists paralysing the country would play into Boris's hands (or whoever is conservative leader) and at the same time Rishi comes to his senses and delivers a fair and sensible package of measures to address some of the worst effects of our current col crisis could well change the narrative
Yes I totally agree with you about this.
As a Left-leaner the thought of a national rail strike fills me with political dread, for the very reason you suggest.
It could play right into Boris' hands.
A true left leaner would support the RMT standing up for the 2,500 safety critical employees threatened with dismissal and dedicated rail staff who have been offered a wage increase that is effectively a massive pay cut. If there is a strike it is due to management failing to engage. The RMT want a fair solution.
Morning Taz. I was surprised to read yesterday that on Scotrail , once qualified and past probation period train drivers get 48K and Doctor's once qualified get 40K. Doctors may have advantages later but it seems from that to me at least that train drivers are not badly paid.
Good morning Malc. Hope all is well with you.
Yes, rail drivers are well recompensed although they have to spend quite a bit of time training for it before being able to drive solo. The husband of one of my wife’s co workers is currently training to be a metro driver in the north east. It’s around 2 years to train.
Tube drivers are very well recompensed too.
However the drivers are a small portion of the workers employed in rail and represented by the RMT.
I hope they can come to an agreement without resorting to strike action.
Also, on the more macabre side, Train drivers can kill more people than doctors when they make a simple mistake...
Joining in the Nature Notes… house martins arrived a couple of weeks early and we have six active nests on the barn, navigation skills have dipped as they keep flying into the kitchen, do a lap or two and then exit… curlew and lapwing numbers seem OK, still benefitting from lockdown one breeding season, and there is a serious project underway to build curlew numbers… looking to compensate farmers for deferring silage until after curlew chicks have fledged… which is an interesting idea… environmental schemes are short term as we are waiting for DEFRA to sort themselves out
The best hope the Conservatives now have is to ride out the storm and hope it has blown through by 2024.
It's probably too late now to save things by ditching the oaf at the top. The more he ramps up the culture wars and whips the Daily Mail into propaganda, the more hardened but smaller their voter base will become. We've seen this all before and it NEVER works.
Prepare for a landslide defeat.
the Horror that is Woke
It's really little wonder that you and I dislike each other!
I note that Australia has just booted out the right. I suspect, fairly strongly, that voters are turning left as usually happens during an economic downturn which the Right have failed to stem.
The cost of living crisis is going to do for the Conservatives but the likelihood, or inevitability according to the Telegraph, of recession will really screw them. Hence why I think a landslide defeat is on the cards.
Appealing to culture wars in a time of economic crisis is a well-worn tactic. It might have worked in Germany in the 1930s but recent history suggests it won't now.
Yes you're on the Woke left and I'm on the non-Woke right, but for all your loudly avowed good intentions and self-regarding progressive values, the weird thing is that I am obviously nicer than you
eg there is no way I would join the board of a morning and make some random, tiny, aimless yet spiteful aside about a poster not even present. Simply wouldn't occur to me. Not in my nature.
Yet it is in yours. Something to ponder, I suggest
It's typical of the Woke.
They are actually rather nasty and unpleasant (and secretly hate themselves for it) so wear the Wokery as a public cloak to make themselves feel better and communicate what they'd like others to think about them.
Doesn't work, of course - because they know it's vacuous and insincere.
This is absolutely true and completely accords with my experience
For the purposes of clarity and kindness, this is not aimed at @Heathener - I simply don't know her well enough to say anything serious about her - but yes, the Woke-iest people I know in real life are often the nastiest. Bitchy, resentful, humourless, with a tendency to supercilious preaching and, if they can get away with it, bullying
This is one reason why Wokeness is so corrosive and aggressive and gets such a strong reaction. It is often pressed by the most annoying types: they would have been the hectoring, ultra-conservative prudes in Victorian times
This is also a reason why the Trans-Terf wars are so vicious, they are prosecuted by the Woke on both sides, so they try and bully each other. Ugly
I have a primary client at the moment is precisely like this.
A deeply unpleasant and self-obsessed woman who spends all her time briefing heavily against others behind their backs and creating a toxic environment - she is entirely untrustworthy and absolutely a bully - whilst brandishing her credentials for every national/international day for this and that under the sun all over LinkedIn.
My wife, shrewd as she is, continually points out to me that this means she has deep-seated insecurities and issues - not those who she targets.
Your wife is right and we all come across people like this. Nothing to do with wokeness and all to do with insecurity as your wife says.
I do think you have gone over the top re @Heathener this morning. Done the same myself with others in the past so not a criticism, just saying.
I haven't gone over the top at all.
My comment wasn't directed at anyone but rather the Woke in general. It was in response to one that was but that's quite a different thing.
It some have responded to take it personally then that says quite a lot about them, in my view.
You can't dehumanise someone and then get upset when you're called out on it.
Woah. I haven't dehumanised anyone and there's nothing to be "called out" on. My comment is an entirely reasonable one and I stand by it.
This is simply the left-wing herd rallying to defend one of their own because they think they've been targeted and have been triggered by the use of the word Woke.
What's wrong with being woke? As far as I am aware it means being aware of other people with their plusses and minuses and issues.
I spent 30+ years in a school environment where bullying was a big ongoing issue. It usually existed because there were two types of students, a group who were different, or had "issues", such as ADHD or aspergers, or home issues. The other type were students who bullied them due to their differences. We spent many years trying and succeeding sometimes in getting the bullies to become aware of other people and their problems, sometimes called tolerence. I suppose you could call that becoming more woke. Those who never accepted or became tolerent were the worst kind of bully. There are a lot of people like that on here.
I would never take it as an insult to be called woke.
Edit: I should have said 3 types, the third type had nothing to do with bullying.
We were talking yesterday about equality and diversity training at universities. Some of the course I was on was quite simply to make clear to new students (and tbf all new staff, adult volunteers, etc.) that precisely that sort of playground behaviour would not be tolerated. Especially when the youngsters are off the leash, under pressure themselves, and meeting other people with backgrounds and problems they'd never encountered.
Of course, such courses and the people who organise, implement and track them are regularly decried in the right wing media as woke.
“Woke” isn’t helped by being an American imported word and an invasive species. Like so many other recent examples. As such it has the original meaning of general awareness and understanding of others’ disadvantage, but it’s also come to fill the same ecological niche in right wing thought as the native “PC”.
I'm convinced the same people who lecture people on holding the correct Woke attitudes today would have been the most conservative and religious people in, say, Victorian times. Their beliefs change over the generations, but their hectoring and lecturing doesn't.
Do you consider it woke/lecturing/hectoring when the government and others tells businesses and people that they must work from the office?
Doesn't that depend upon how effective the output of those people who work from home is compared to when they didn't work from home ?
Now how much the government knows what the general effectiveness of working from home is they must by now have a pretty good idea about how government departments are affected by working from home.
If its negatively so then they have every right, indeed a responsibility, to restrict working from home.
What other organisations do is up to themselves to sort out.
Speaking personally I would do less work and do it less effectively if I worked from home.
How many others are like that ?
Don't know but its a three part division:
1) Those who work less effectively at home and are honest about it 2) Those who work less effectively at home but lie about it 3) Those who work as effectively at home
At a previous job, the IT department challenged us to come up with the most unguessable, yet personal memorable password (not a bad competition, as it made us all think). I offered them "Trotsky1847". "A Russian revolutionary personally acquainted with my grandfather with the year of his 19th century birth."
I won, the prize being a chocolate Easter egg. Not sure Trotsky would have approved.
The best hope the Conservatives now have is to ride out the storm and hope it has blown through by 2024.
It's probably too late now to save things by ditching the oaf at the top. The more he ramps up the culture wars and whips the Daily Mail into propaganda, the more hardened but smaller their voter base will become. We've seen this all before and it NEVER works.
Prepare for a landslide defeat.
the Horror that is Woke
It's really little wonder that you and I dislike each other!
I note that Australia has just booted out the right. I suspect, fairly strongly, that voters are turning left as usually happens during an economic downturn which the Right have failed to stem.
The cost of living crisis is going to do for the Conservatives but the likelihood, or inevitability according to the Telegraph, of recession will really screw them. Hence why I think a landslide defeat is on the cards.
Appealing to culture wars in a time of economic crisis is a well-worn tactic. It might have worked in Germany in the 1930s but recent history suggests it won't now.
Yes you're on the Woke left and I'm on the non-Woke right, but for all your loudly avowed good intentions and self-regarding progressive values, the weird thing is that I am obviously nicer than you
eg there is no way I would join the board of a morning and make some random, tiny, aimless yet spiteful aside about a poster not even present. Simply wouldn't occur to me. Not in my nature.
Yet it is in yours. Something to ponder, I suggest
It's typical of the Woke.
They are actually rather nasty and unpleasant (and secretly hate themselves for it) so wear the Wokery as a public cloak to make themselves feel better and communicate what they'd like others to think about them.
Doesn't work, of course - because they know it's vacuous and insincere.
This is absolutely true and completely accords with my experience
For the purposes of clarity and kindness, this is not aimed at @Heathener - I simply don't know her well enough to say anything serious about her - but yes, the Woke-iest people I know in real life are often the nastiest. Bitchy, resentful, humourless, with a tendency to supercilious preaching and, if they can get away with it, bullying
This is one reason why Wokeness is so corrosive and aggressive and gets such a strong reaction. It is often pressed by the most annoying types: they would have been the hectoring, ultra-conservative prudes in Victorian times
This is also a reason why the Trans-Terf wars are so vicious, they are prosecuted by the Woke on both sides, so they try and bully each other. Ugly
I have a primary client at the moment is precisely like this.
A deeply unpleasant and self-obsessed woman who spends all her time briefing heavily against others behind their backs and creating a toxic environment - she is entirely untrustworthy and absolutely a bully - whilst brandishing her credentials for every national/international day for this and that under the sun all over LinkedIn.
My wife, shrewd as she is, continually points out to me that this means she has deep-seated insecurities and issues - not those who she targets.
Your wife is right and we all come across people like this. Nothing to do with wokeness and all to do with insecurity as your wife says.
I do think you have gone over the top re @Heathener this morning. Done the same myself with others in the past so not a criticism, just saying.
I haven't gone over the top at all.
My comment wasn't directed at anyone but rather the Woke in general. It was in response to one that was but that's quite a different thing.
It some have responded to take it personally then that says quite a lot about them, in my view.
You can't dehumanise someone and then get upset when you're called out on it.
Woah. I haven't dehumanised anyone and there's nothing to be "called out" on. My comment is an entirely reasonable one and I stand by it.
This is simply the left-wing herd rallying to defend one of their own because they think they've been targeted and have been triggered by the use of the word Woke.
'left-wing herd' - you don't have a scooby do you?
Joining in the Nature Notes… house martins arrived a couple of weeks early and we have six active nests on the barn, navigation skills have dipped as they keep flying into the kitchen, do a lap or two and then exit… curlew and lapwing numbers seem OK, still benefitting from lockdown one breeding season, and there is a serious project underway to build curlew numbers… looking to compensate farmers for deferring silage until after curlew chicks have fledged… which is an interesting idea… environmental schemes are short term as we are waiting for DEFRA to sort themselves out
We only have a small garden as we downsized some twenty years ago, as we retired. However, because we're in quite a small c community, and near the edge of it, we do get a reasonable variety of bird-life. One afternoon last summer I was hosting a small u3a Group in our garden, because we were advised to be outside if possible, and we had swifts and swallows flying fairly close overhead, and a buzzard and red kite higher up. Slightly odd, because swifts are often higher.
I'm convinced the same people who lecture people on holding the correct Woke attitudes today would have been the most conservative and religious people in, say, Victorian times. Their beliefs change over the generations, but their hectoring and lecturing doesn't.
Do you consider it woke/lecturing/hectoring when the government and others tells businesses and people that they must work from the office?
Doesn't that depend upon how effective the output of those people who work from home is compared to when they didn't work from home ?
Now how much the government knows what the general effectiveness of working from home is they must by now have a pretty good idea about how government departments are affected by working from home.
If its negatively so then they have every right, indeed a responsibility, to restrict working from home.
What other organisations do is up to themselves to sort out.
Speaking personally I would do less work and do it less effectively if I worked from home.
How many others are like that ?
Don't know but its a three part division:
1) Those who work less effectively at home and are honest about it 2) Those who work less effectively at home but lie about it 3) Those who work as effectively at home
All women shortlist chosen for Conservative members to choose from as their candidate for the Tiverton and Honiton by election. All 3 are local women from the area
"Ukraine rules out ceasefire deal that gives land to Russia"
Oh well no ceasefire then.
Alas, neither side have suffered enough casualties to bring a degree of pragmatism to the matter.
We still regularly get posts on pb.com exulting (ugh) about Russian deaths. It is in the nature of war that Ukrainian deaths will be comparable to Russian deaths.
We can look forward to a Vietnam War on Europe's doorstep at this rate.
At some point, it will dawn on Biden & Johnson that a massive war, a tragic & ongoing refugee crisis, economic sanctions that hurt everyones' economy, together with major famines in a number of poor countries, are not going to help the re-election chances of either the Democrats or the Tories.
But, we are not there yet ... there has not been enough killing to satisfy those who live over the hills and far away.
I expect it will end up ... maybe in 2 years time as the Democrats and the Tories grapple with their electoral prospects ... with Ukraine being forced to give up some land for guarantees of protection from the US/West.
I'm convinced the same people who lecture people on holding the correct Woke attitudes today would have been the most conservative and religious people in, say, Victorian times. Their beliefs change over the generations, but their hectoring and lecturing doesn't.
Do you consider it woke/lecturing/hectoring when the government and others tells businesses and people that they must work from the office?
Doesn't that depend upon how effective the output of those people who work from home is compared to when they didn't work from home ?
Now how much the government knows what the general effectiveness of working from home is they must by now have a pretty good idea about how government departments are affected by working from home.
If its negatively so then they have every right, indeed a responsibility, to restrict working from home.
What other organisations do is up to themselves to sort out.
Speaking personally I would do less work and do it less effectively if I worked from home.
How many others are like that ?
Don't know but its a three part division:
1) Those who work less effectively at home and are honest about it 2) Those who work less effectively at home but lie about it 3) Those who work as effectively at home
4) Those who work more effectively at home?
Its possible.
Would suggest a pretty terrible workplace or a worker with health issues.
I'm convinced the same people who lecture people on holding the correct Woke attitudes today would have been the most conservative and religious people in, say, Victorian times. Their beliefs change over the generations, but their hectoring and lecturing doesn't.
Do you consider it woke/lecturing/hectoring when the government and others tells businesses and people that they must work from the office?
Doesn't that depend upon how effective the output of those people who work from home is compared to when they didn't work from home ?
Now how much the government knows what the general effectiveness of working from home is they must by now have a pretty good idea about how government departments are affected by working from home.
If its negatively so then they have every right, indeed a responsibility, to restrict working from home.
What other organisations do is up to themselves to sort out.
Speaking personally I would do less work and do it less effectively if I worked from home.
How many others are like that ?
Don't know but its a three part division:
1) Those who work less effectively at home and are honest about it 2) Those who work less effectively at home but lie about it 3) Those who work as effectively at home
After a decade working from home, I'd say it is more complicated than that, and the biggest impact was not on individual productivity but on team-building, organisational integration (there is probably a better term for that) and mentorship. And this comes from international and global companies who were already used to remote working.
And then there is the question of workspace. Moving from a crowded and noisy open-plan office to a converted spare bedroom overlooking the garden is not the same as transitioning from a dedicated, air-conditioned office to the kitchen table in a crowded flat scrabbling for space with a partner and two home-schooling children.
The best hope the Conservatives now have is to ride out the storm and hope it has blown through by 2024.
It's probably too late now to save things by ditching the oaf at the top. The more he ramps up the culture wars and whips the Daily Mail into propaganda, the more hardened but smaller their voter base will become. We've seen this all before and it NEVER works.
Prepare for a landslide defeat.
the Horror that is Woke
It's really little wonder that you and I dislike each other!
I note that Australia has just booted out the right. I suspect, fairly strongly, that voters are turning left as usually happens during an economic downturn which the Right have failed to stem.
The cost of living crisis is going to do for the Conservatives but the likelihood, or inevitability according to the Telegraph, of recession will really screw them. Hence why I think a landslide defeat is on the cards.
Appealing to culture wars in a time of economic crisis is a well-worn tactic. It might have worked in Germany in the 1930s but recent history suggests it won't now.
Yes you're on the Woke left and I'm on the non-Woke right, but for all your loudly avowed good intentions and self-regarding progressive values, the weird thing is that I am obviously nicer than you
eg there is no way I would join the board of a morning and make some random, tiny, aimless yet spiteful aside about a poster not even present. Simply wouldn't occur to me. Not in my nature.
Yet it is in yours. Something to ponder, I suggest
It's typical of the Woke.
They are actually rather nasty and unpleasant (and secretly hate themselves for it) so wear the Wokery as a public cloak to make themselves feel better and communicate what they'd like others to think about them.
Doesn't work, of course - because they know it's vacuous and insincere.
A rather nasty and unpleasant view. Are you by any chance suffering from Wokepox?
Yep a really nasty and unpleasant view, and supported by Leon.
I don't see a particular difference between nastiness on Left or Right but I happen to think the latter are more hypocritical and have more Chutzpah about it. They seem to lack self-awareness that they are being vile.
All women shortlist chosen for Conservative members to choose from as their candidate for the Tiverton and Honiton by election. All 3 are local women from the area
All women shortlist chosen for Conservative members to choose from as their candidate for the Tiverton and Honiton by election. All 3 are local women from the area
The best hope the Conservatives now have is to ride out the storm and hope it has blown through by 2024.
It's probably too late now to save things by ditching the oaf at the top. The more he ramps up the culture wars and whips the Daily Mail into propaganda, the more hardened but smaller their voter base will become. We've seen this all before and it NEVER works.
Prepare for a landslide defeat.
the Horror that is Woke
It's really little wonder that you and I dislike each other!
I note that Australia has just booted out the right. I suspect, fairly strongly, that voters are turning left as usually happens during an economic downturn which the Right have failed to stem.
The cost of living crisis is going to do for the Conservatives but the likelihood, or inevitability according to the Telegraph, of recession will really screw them. Hence why I think a landslide defeat is on the cards.
Appealing to culture wars in a time of economic crisis is a well-worn tactic. It might have worked in Germany in the 1930s but recent history suggests it won't now.
The only caution I would make is that a RMT rail strike led by 3 Putin apologists paralysing the country would play into Boris's hands (or whoever is conservative leader) and at the same time Rishi comes to his senses and delivers a fair and sensible package of measures to address some of the worst effects of our current col crisis could well change the narrative
Yes I totally agree with you about this.
As a Left-leaner the thought of a national rail strike fills me with political dread, for the very reason you suggest.
It could play right into Boris' hands.
A true left leaner would support the RMT standing up for the 2,500 safety critical employees threatened with dismissal and dedicated rail staff who have been offered a wage increase that is effectively a massive pay cut. If there is a strike it is due to management failing to engage. The RMT want a fair solution.
Morning Taz. I was surprised to read yesterday that on Scotrail , once qualified and past probation period train drivers get 48K and Doctor's once qualified get 40K. Doctors may have advantages later but it seems from that to me at least that train drivers are not badly paid.
Good morning Malc. Hope all is well with you.
Yes, rail drivers are well recompensed although they have to spend quite a bit of time training for it before being able to drive solo. The husband of one of my wife’s co workers is currently training to be a metro driver in the north east. It’s around 2 years to train.
Tube drivers are very well recompensed too.
However the drivers are a small portion of the workers employed in rail and represented by the RMT.
I hope they can come to an agreement without resorting to strike action.
Also, on the more macabre side, Train drivers can kill more people than doctors when they make a simple mistake...
That's why airline pilots are paid a fortune.
On a point of PB pedantry, a 'normally' is needed in front of 'kill'..
Worst rail disaster in UK ascribed to driver error* = Harrow and Wealdstone 1952, 112 dead.
Dr Shipman: 218 ++
* albeit in patchy fog. Mind, 'driver error' is often an iffy verdict ...
All women shortlist chosen for Conservative members to choose from as their candidate for the Tiverton and Honiton by election. All 3 are local women from the area
All women shortlist chosen for Conservative members to choose from as their candidate for the Tiverton and Honiton by election. All 3 are local women from the area
"Ukraine rules out ceasefire deal that gives land to Russia"
Oh well no ceasefire then.
Alas, neither side have suffered enough casualties to bring a degree of pragmatism to the matter.
We still regularly get posts on pb.com exulting (ugh) about Russian deaths. It is in the nature of war that Ukrainian deaths will be comparable to Russian deaths.
We can look forward to a Vietnam War on Europe's doorstep at this rate.
At some point, it will dawn on Biden & Johnson that a massive war, a tragic & ongoing refugee crisis, economic sanctions that hurt everyones' economy, together with major famines in a number of poor countries, are not going to help the re-election chances of either the Democrats or the Tories.
But, we are not there yet ... there has not been enough killing to satisfy those who live over the hills and far away.
I expect it will end up ... maybe in 2 years time as the Democrats and the Tories grapple with their electoral prospects ... with Ukraine being forced to give up some land for guarantees of protection from the US/West.
Good post It's easy to be gung ho about war when we are not doing the fighting and tens of thousands of Ukrainians are dying How would we like it if Manchester was completely destroyed for example as Mariupol has been
On topic - do we have data on where the current Green vote came from? Anecdotally, the Greens I meet seem to be Corbyinstas of the StarmerTory variety. They are voting Green to preserve their purity.
On the woke thing, something is being forgotten. Involvement in causes can come from a number of different personal er….. viewpoints.
Some people seek out a Perfect Moral Position, from where they can lecture and harass others. The history of religion is full of such people. The actual belief structure seems to be relatively unimportant - just that they are The Good and therefore they are justified in mindless hate.
Then you have the grifters - making money of the latest religion.
Right at the back, you have the people actually effected by the issue, very often.
Of course, the sane behaviour is compromise. But compromise is forbidden by the nature of fundamentalist belief.
I'm convinced the same people who lecture people on holding the correct Woke attitudes today would have been the most conservative and religious people in, say, Victorian times. Their beliefs change over the generations, but their hectoring and lecturing doesn't.
Do you consider it woke/lecturing/hectoring when the government and others tells businesses and people that they must work from the office?
Doesn't that depend upon how effective the output of those people who work from home is compared to when they didn't work from home ?
Now how much the government knows what the general effectiveness of working from home is they must by now have a pretty good idea about how government departments are affected by working from home.
If its negatively so then they have every right, indeed a responsibility, to restrict working from home.
What other organisations do is up to themselves to sort out.
Speaking personally I would do less work and do it less effectively if I worked from home.
How many others are like that ?
Don't know but its a three part division:
1) Those who work less effectively at home and are honest about it 2) Those who work less effectively at home but lie about it 3) Those who work as effectively at home
Up to a point, Lord Copper.
Remember, though, that it might still be worth taking a hit on output per office worker. After all, the cost of a desk space is non-trivial, especially in Central London. See the recent fiasco at the Department for Education, where demanding everyone return to the office meant that there weren't enough desks for everyone.
And if remote/hybrid work is seen as attractive by employees, that eventually means that non-remote work becomes something employers have to pay a premium for.
Now it is possible that Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg have gone through the calculations and concluded that a return to the office is the right thing to do. Of course, it'spossible, but is it really that likely?
The best hope the Conservatives now have is to ride out the storm and hope it has blown through by 2024.
It's probably too late now to save things by ditching the oaf at the top. The more he ramps up the culture wars and whips the Daily Mail into propaganda, the more hardened but smaller their voter base will become. We've seen this all before and it NEVER works.
Prepare for a landslide defeat.
the Horror that is Woke
It's really little wonder that you and I dislike each other!
I note that Australia has just booted out the right. I suspect, fairly strongly, that voters are turning left as usually happens during an economic downturn which the Right have failed to stem.
The cost of living crisis is going to do for the Conservatives but the likelihood, or inevitability according to the Telegraph, of recession will really screw them. Hence why I think a landslide defeat is on the cards.
Appealing to culture wars in a time of economic crisis is a well-worn tactic. It might have worked in Germany in the 1930s but recent history suggests it won't now.
The only caution I would make is that a RMT rail strike led by 3 Putin apologists paralysing the country would play into Boris's hands (or whoever is conservative leader) and at the same time Rishi comes to his senses and delivers a fair and sensible package of measures to address some of the worst effects of our current col crisis could well change the narrative
Yes I totally agree with you about this.
As a Left-leaner the thought of a national rail strike fills me with political dread, for the very reason you suggest.
It could play right into Boris' hands.
A true left leaner would support the RMT standing up for the 2,500 safety critical employees threatened with dismissal and dedicated rail staff who have been offered a wage increase that is effectively a massive pay cut. If there is a strike it is due to management failing to engage. The RMT want a fair solution.
Morning Taz. I was surprised to read yesterday that on Scotrail , once qualified and past probation period train drivers get 48K and Doctor's once qualified get 40K. Doctors may have advantages later but it seems from that to me at least that train drivers are not badly paid.
Good morning Malc. Hope all is well with you.
Yes, rail drivers are well recompensed although they have to spend quite a bit of time training for it before being able to drive solo. The husband of one of my wife’s co workers is currently training to be a metro driver in the north east. It’s around 2 years to train.
Tube drivers are very well recompensed too.
However the drivers are a small portion of the workers employed in rail and represented by the RMT.
I hope they can come to an agreement without resorting to strike action.
Also, on the more macabre side, Train drivers can kill more people than doctors when they make a simple mistake...
That's why airline pilots are paid a fortune.
On a point of PB pedantry, a 'normally' is needed in front of 'kill'..
Worst rail disaster in UK ascribed to driver error* = Harrow and Wealdstone 1952, 112 dead.
Dr Shipman: 218 ++
* albeit in patchy fog. Mind, 'driver error' is often an iffy verdict ...
Shipman was acting with malice aforethought. IIRC he could be very unpleasant when his prescribing was queried.
All women shortlist chosen for Conservative members to choose from as their candidate for the Tiverton and Honiton by election. All 3 are local women from the area
At a previous job, the IT department challenged us to come up with the most unguessable, yet personal memorable password (not a bad competition, as it made us all think). I offered them "Trotsky1847". "A Russian revolutionary personally acquainted with my grandfather with the year of his 19th century birth."
I won, the prize being a chocolate Easter egg. Not sure Trotsky would have approved.
A cursory knowledge of Welsh is very helpful in constructing passwords.
I'm convinced the same people who lecture people on holding the correct Woke attitudes today would have been the most conservative and religious people in, say, Victorian times. Their beliefs change over the generations, but their hectoring and lecturing doesn't.
Do you consider it woke/lecturing/hectoring when the government and others tells businesses and people that they must work from the office?
Doesn't that depend upon how effective the output of those people who work from home is compared to when they didn't work from home ?
Now how much the government knows what the general effectiveness of working from home is they must by now have a pretty good idea about how government departments are affected by working from home.
If its negatively so then they have every right, indeed a responsibility, to restrict working from home.
What other organisations do is up to themselves to sort out.
Speaking personally I would do less work and do it less effectively if I worked from home.
How many others are like that ?
Don't know but its a three part division:
1) Those who work less effectively at home and are honest about it 2) Those who work less effectively at home but lie about it 3) Those who work as effectively at home
After a decade working from home, I'd say it is more complicated than that, and the biggest impact was not on individual productivity but on team-building, organisational integration (there is probably a better term for that) and mentorship. And this comes from international and global companies who were already used to remote working.
And then there is the question of workspace. Moving from a crowded and noisy open-plan office to a converted spare bedroom overlooking the garden is not the same as transitioning from a dedicated, air-conditioned office to the kitchen table in a crowded flat scrabbling for space with a partner and two home-schooling children.
Certainly every individual worker and every individual employer will be different.
But it should be pretty apparent now how effective working from home is for both worker and employer.
Where its positive for both it should continue and where negative for both should stop.
Where its positive for one but negative for the other it becomes contentious.
The best hope the Conservatives now have is to ride out the storm and hope it has blown through by 2024.
It's probably too late now to save things by ditching the oaf at the top. The more he ramps up the culture wars and whips the Daily Mail into propaganda, the more hardened but smaller their voter base will become. We've seen this all before and it NEVER works.
Prepare for a landslide defeat.
the Horror that is Woke
It's really little wonder that you and I dislike each other!
I note that Australia has just booted out the right. I suspect, fairly strongly, that voters are turning left as usually happens during an economic downturn which the Right have failed to stem.
The cost of living crisis is going to do for the Conservatives but the likelihood, or inevitability according to the Telegraph, of recession will really screw them. Hence why I think a landslide defeat is on the cards.
Appealing to culture wars in a time of economic crisis is a well-worn tactic. It might have worked in Germany in the 1930s but recent history suggests it won't now.
The only caution I would make is that a RMT rail strike led by 3 Putin apologists paralysing the country would play into Boris's hands (or whoever is conservative leader) and at the same time Rishi comes to his senses and delivers a fair and sensible package of measures to address some of the worst effects of our current col crisis could well change the narrative
Yes I totally agree with you about this.
As a Left-leaner the thought of a national rail strike fills me with political dread, for the very reason you suggest.
It could play right into Boris' hands.
A true left leaner would support the RMT standing up for the 2,500 safety critical employees threatened with dismissal and dedicated rail staff who have been offered a wage increase that is effectively a massive pay cut. If there is a strike it is due to management failing to engage. The RMT want a fair solution.
Morning Taz. I was surprised to read yesterday that on Scotrail , once qualified and past probation period train drivers get 48K and Doctor's once qualified get 40K. Doctors may have advantages later but it seems from that to me at least that train drivers are not badly paid.
Good morning Malc. Hope all is well with you.
Yes, rail drivers are well recompensed although they have to spend quite a bit of time training for it before being able to drive solo. The husband of one of my wife’s co workers is currently training to be a metro driver in the north east. It’s around 2 years to train.
Tube drivers are very well recompensed too.
However the drivers are a small portion of the workers employed in rail and represented by the RMT.
I hope they can come to an agreement without resorting to strike action.
Also, on the more macabre side, Train drivers can kill more people than doctors when they make a simple mistake...
That's why airline pilots are paid a fortune.
On a point of PB pedantry, a 'normally' is needed in front of 'kill'..
Worst rail disaster in UK ascribed to driver error* = Harrow and Wealdstone 1952, 112 dead.
Dr Shipman: 218 ++
* albeit in patchy fog. Mind, 'driver error' is often an iffy verdict ...
Shipman was acting with malice aforethought. IIRC he could be very unpleasant when his prescribing was queried.
Yes, you're right, of course! It's an interesting quesiton though how many people docs can kill without meaning to. I suppose one has to put the ones they save in the utilitarian/Benthamite balance!
All women shortlist chosen for Conservative members to choose from as their candidate for the Tiverton and Honiton by election. All 3 are local women from the area
I'm convinced the same people who lecture people on holding the correct Woke attitudes today would have been the most conservative and religious people in, say, Victorian times. Their beliefs change over the generations, but their hectoring and lecturing doesn't.
Do you consider it woke/lecturing/hectoring when the government and others tells businesses and people that they must work from the office?
Doesn't that depend upon how effective the output of those people who work from home is compared to when they didn't work from home ?
Now how much the government knows what the general effectiveness of working from home is they must by now have a pretty good idea about how government departments are affected by working from home.
If its negatively so then they have every right, indeed a responsibility, to restrict working from home.
What other organisations do is up to themselves to sort out.
Speaking personally I would do less work and do it less effectively if I worked from home.
How many others are like that ?
Don't know but its a three part division:
1) Those who work less effectively at home and are honest about it 2) Those who work less effectively at home but lie about it 3) Those who work as effectively at home
After a decade working from home, I'd say it is more complicated than that, and the biggest impact was not on individual productivity but on team-building, organisational integration (there is probably a better term for that) and mentorship. And this comes from international and global companies who were already used to remote working.
And then there is the question of workspace. Moving from a crowded and noisy open-plan office to a converted spare bedroom overlooking the garden is not the same as transitioning from a dedicated, air-conditioned office to the kitchen table in a crowded flat scrabbling for space with a partner and two home-schooling children.
Certainly every individual worker and every individual employer will be different.
But it should be pretty apparent now how effective working from home is for both worker and employer.
Where its positive for both it should continue and where negative for both should stop.
Where its positive for one but negative for the other it becomes contentious.
I didn't find much effective about converting 250 square feet of my 600 square foot flat into an office, and having to eat my dinner at the same table I'd spent the last ten hours on teams calls.
Nor did I find much to enjoy about the extra £150 a month heating bills during the winter months.
"Ukraine rules out ceasefire deal that gives land to Russia"
Oh well no ceasefire then.
Alas, neither side have suffered enough casualties to bring a degree of pragmatism to the matter.
We still regularly get posts on pb.com exulting (ugh) about Russian deaths. It is in the nature of war that Ukrainian deaths will be comparable to Russian deaths.
We can look forward to a Vietnam War on Europe's doorstep at this rate.
At some point, it will dawn on Biden & Johnson that a massive war, a tragic & ongoing refugee crisis, economic sanctions that hurt everyones' economy, together with major famines in a number of poor countries, are not going to help the re-election chances of either the Democrats or the Tories.
But, we are not there yet ... there has not been enough killing to satisfy those who live over the hills and far away.
I expect it will end up ... maybe in 2 years time as the Democrats and the Tories grapple with their electoral prospects ... with Ukraine being forced to give up some land for guarantees of protection from the US/West.
Careful now. If you don't believe the Azov Battalion will be within mortar range of the Voskresenskiye Vorota by next Christmas you'll get accused of having snow on your boots.
I'm convinced the same people who lecture people on holding the correct Woke attitudes today would have been the most conservative and religious people in, say, Victorian times. Their beliefs change over the generations, but their hectoring and lecturing doesn't.
Do you consider it woke/lecturing/hectoring when the government and others tells businesses and people that they must work from the office?
Doesn't that depend upon how effective the output of those people who work from home is compared to when they didn't work from home ?
Now how much the government knows what the general effectiveness of working from home is they must by now have a pretty good idea about how government departments are affected by working from home.
If its negatively so then they have every right, indeed a responsibility, to restrict working from home.
What other organisations do is up to themselves to sort out.
Speaking personally I would do less work and do it less effectively if I worked from home.
How many others are like that ?
Don't know but its a three part division:
1) Those who work less effectively at home and are honest about it 2) Those who work less effectively at home but lie about it 3) Those who work as effectively at home
4) Those who work more effectively at home?
People have a hard time understanding the situations of others on this, as with many other issues.
Some kinds of work is perfectly suited for WFH - and has its management metrics all setup. Agile software development, for example.
Other jobs haven’t had metrics and management tools setup. Others again require collaboration in ways that don’t work well remotely.
I think that there are a large chunk of jobs which could be done as WFH, but would require major changes in organisations and working practises to make it happen.
At a previous job, the IT department challenged us to come up with the most unguessable, yet personal memorable password (not a bad competition, as it made us all think). I offered them "Trotsky1847". "A Russian revolutionary personally acquainted with my grandfather with the year of his 19th century birth."
I won, the prize being a chocolate Easter egg. Not sure Trotsky would have approved.
A cursory knowledge of Welsh is very helpful in constructing passwords.
On topic - do we have data on where the current Green vote came from? Anecdotally, the Greens I meet seem to be Corbyinstas of the StarmerTory variety. They are voting Green to preserve their purity.
On the woke thing, something is being forgotten. Involvement in causes can come from a number of different personal er….. viewpoints.
Some people seek out a Perfect Moral Position, from where they can lecture and harass others. The history of religion is full of such people. The actual belief structure seems to be relatively unimportant - just that they are The Good and therefore they are justified in mindless hate.
Then you have the grifters - making money of the latest religion.
Right at the back, you have the people actually effected by the issue, very often.
Of course, the sane behaviour is compromise. But compromise is forbidden by the nature of fundamentalist belief.
An accurate description of the major issue in British politics of the last 6 years.
I'm convinced the same people who lecture people on holding the correct Woke attitudes today would have been the most conservative and religious people in, say, Victorian times. Their beliefs change over the generations, but their hectoring and lecturing doesn't.
Do you consider it woke/lecturing/hectoring when the government and others tells businesses and people that they must work from the office?
Doesn't that depend upon how effective the output of those people who work from home is compared to when they didn't work from home ?
Now how much the government knows what the general effectiveness of working from home is they must by now have a pretty good idea about how government departments are affected by working from home.
If its negatively so then they have every right, indeed a responsibility, to restrict working from home.
What other organisations do is up to themselves to sort out.
Speaking personally I would do less work and do it less effectively if I worked from home.
How many others are like that ?
Don't know but its a three part division:
1) Those who work less effectively at home and are honest about it 2) Those who work less effectively at home but lie about it 3) Those who work as effectively at home
After a decade working from home, I'd say it is more complicated than that, and the biggest impact was not on individual productivity but on team-building, organisational integration (there is probably a better term for that) and mentorship. And this comes from international and global companies who were already used to remote working.
And then there is the question of workspace. Moving from a crowded and noisy open-plan office to a converted spare bedroom overlooking the garden is not the same as transitioning from a dedicated, air-conditioned office to the kitchen table in a crowded flat scrabbling for space with a partner and two home-schooling children.
Certainly every individual worker and every individual employer will be different.
But it should be pretty apparent now how effective working from home is for both worker and employer.
Where its positive for both it should continue and where negative for both should stop.
Where its positive for one but negative for the other it becomes contentious.
The point is that some effects, like less efficient on-boarding and mentorship, will take time, possibly years, to become obvious. Others, like the impact of children at home, will vary from month to month. It is not as simple as comparing this week's numbers to last.
The best hope the Conservatives now have is to ride out the storm and hope it has blown through by 2024.
It's probably too late now to save things by ditching the oaf at the top. The more he ramps up the culture wars and whips the Daily Mail into propaganda, the more hardened but smaller their voter base will become. We've seen this all before and it NEVER works.
Prepare for a landslide defeat.
the Horror that is Woke
It's really little wonder that you and I dislike each other!
I note that Australia has just booted out the right. I suspect, fairly strongly, that voters are turning left as usually happens during an economic downturn which the Right have failed to stem.
The cost of living crisis is going to do for the Conservatives but the likelihood, or inevitability according to the Telegraph, of recession will really screw them. Hence why I think a landslide defeat is on the cards.
Appealing to culture wars in a time of economic crisis is a well-worn tactic. It might have worked in Germany in the 1930s but recent history suggests it won't now.
Yes you're on the Woke left and I'm on the non-Woke right, but for all your loudly avowed good intentions and self-regarding progressive values, the weird thing is that I am obviously nicer than you
eg there is no way I would join the board of a morning and make some random, tiny, aimless yet spiteful aside about a poster not even present. Simply wouldn't occur to me. Not in my nature.
Yet it is in yours. Something to ponder, I suggest
It's typical of the Woke.
They are actually rather nasty and unpleasant (and secretly hate themselves for it) so wear the Wokery as a public cloak to make themselves feel better and communicate what they'd like others to think about them.
Doesn't work, of course - because they know it's vacuous and insincere.
This is absolutely true and completely accords with my experience
For the purposes of clarity and kindness, this is not aimed at @Heathener - I simply don't know her well enough to say anything serious about her - but yes, the Woke-iest people I know in real life are often the nastiest. Bitchy, resentful, humourless, with a tendency to supercilious preaching and, if they can get away with it, bullying
This is one reason why Wokeness is so corrosive and aggressive and gets such a strong reaction. It is often pressed by the most annoying types: they would have been the hectoring, ultra-conservative prudes in Victorian times
This is also a reason why the Trans-Terf wars are so vicious, they are prosecuted by the Woke on both sides, so they try and bully each other. Ugly
I have a primary client at the moment is precisely like this.
A deeply unpleasant and self-obsessed woman who spends all her time briefing heavily against others behind their backs and creating a toxic environment - she is entirely untrustworthy and absolutely a bully - whilst brandishing her credentials for every national/international day for this and that under the sun all over LinkedIn.
My wife, shrewd as she is, continually points out to me that this means she has deep-seated insecurities and issues - not those who she targets.
Your wife is right and we all come across people like this. Nothing to do with wokeness and all to do with insecurity as your wife says.
I do think you have gone over the top re @Heathener this morning. Done the same myself with others in the past so not a criticism, just saying.
I haven't gone over the top at all.
My comment wasn't directed at anyone but rather the Woke in general. It was in response to one that was but that's quite a different thing.
It some have responded to take it personally then that says quite a lot about them, in my view.
You can't dehumanise someone and then get upset when you're called out on it.
Woah. I haven't dehumanised anyone and there's nothing to be "called out" on. My comment is an entirely reasonable one and I stand by it.
This is simply the left-wing herd rallying to defend one of their own because they think they've been targeted and have been triggered by the use of the word Woke.
'left-wing herd' - you don't have a scooby do you?
Left wing collection of X tiny groupuscules each with a membership of at least two engaged in perpetual ideological civil and uncivil war with each other over differences of shade that no one else can understand, unlike than those who are inside the obsession bubble.
The best hope the Conservatives now have is to ride out the storm and hope it has blown through by 2024.
It's probably too late now to save things by ditching the oaf at the top. The more he ramps up the culture wars and whips the Daily Mail into propaganda, the more hardened but smaller their voter base will become. We've seen this all before and it NEVER works.
Prepare for a landslide defeat.
the Horror that is Woke
It's really little wonder that you and I dislike each other!
I note that Australia has just booted out the right. I suspect, fairly strongly, that voters are turning left as usually happens during an economic downturn which the Right have failed to stem.
The cost of living crisis is going to do for the Conservatives but the likelihood, or inevitability according to the Telegraph, of recession will really screw them. Hence why I think a landslide defeat is on the cards.
Appealing to culture wars in a time of economic crisis is a well-worn tactic. It might have worked in Germany in the 1930s but recent history suggests it won't now.
The only caution I would make is that a RMT rail strike led by 3 Putin apologists paralysing the country would play into Boris's hands (or whoever is conservative leader) and at the same time Rishi comes to his senses and delivers a fair and sensible package of measures to address some of the worst effects of our current col crisis could well change the narrative
Yes I totally agree with you about this.
As a Left-leaner the thought of a national rail strike fills me with political dread, for the very reason you suggest.
It could play right into Boris' hands.
A true left leaner would support the RMT standing up for the 2,500 safety critical employees threatened with dismissal and dedicated rail staff who have been offered a wage increase that is effectively a massive pay cut. If there is a strike it is due to management failing to engage. The RMT want a fair solution.
Morning Taz. I was surprised to read yesterday that on Scotrail , once qualified and past probation period train drivers get 48K and Doctor's once qualified get 40K. Doctors may have advantages later but it seems from that to me at least that train drivers are not badly paid.
Good morning Malc. Hope all is well with you.
Yes, rail drivers are well recompensed although they have to spend quite a bit of time training for it before being able to drive solo. The husband of one of my wife’s co workers is currently training to be a metro driver in the north east. It’s around 2 years to train.
Tube drivers are very well recompensed too.
However the drivers are a small portion of the workers employed in rail and represented by the RMT.
I hope they can come to an agreement without resorting to strike action.
Also, on the more macabre side, Train drivers can kill more people than doctors when they make a simple mistake...
That's why airline pilots are paid a fortune.
On a point of PB pedantry, a 'normally' is needed in front of 'kill'..
Worst rail disaster in UK ascribed to driver error* = Harrow and Wealdstone 1952, 112 dead.
Dr Shipman: 218 ++
* albeit in patchy fog. Mind, 'driver error' is often an iffy verdict ...
Shipman was acting with malice aforethought. IIRC he could be very unpleasant when his prescribing was queried.
Yes, you're right, of course! It's an interesting quesiton though how many people docs can kill without meaning to. I suppose one has to put the ones they save in the utilitarian/Benthamite balance!
It's twenty plus years since I was concerned with Continuing Education for GP's but the attitude of some could be 'interesting'.
I'm convinced the same people who lecture people on holding the correct Woke attitudes today would have been the most conservative and religious people in, say, Victorian times. Their beliefs change over the generations, but their hectoring and lecturing doesn't.
Do you consider it woke/lecturing/hectoring when the government and others tells businesses and people that they must work from the office?
Yes there are always a portion of people in any society who see it as their role to enforce the prevailing zeitgeist however ludicrous it is
I'm convinced the same people who lecture people on holding the correct Woke attitudes today would have been the most conservative and religious people in, say, Victorian times. Their beliefs change over the generations, but their hectoring and lecturing doesn't.
Do you consider it woke/lecturing/hectoring when the government and others tells businesses and people that they must work from the office?
Doesn't that depend upon how effective the output of those people who work from home is compared to when they didn't work from home ?
Now how much the government knows what the general effectiveness of working from home is they must by now have a pretty good idea about how government departments are affected by working from home.
If its negatively so then they have every right, indeed a responsibility, to restrict working from home.
What other organisations do is up to themselves to sort out.
Speaking personally I would do less work and do it less effectively if I worked from home.
How many others are like that ?
Don't know but its a three part division:
1) Those who work less effectively at home and are honest about it 2) Those who work less effectively at home but lie about it 3) Those who work as effectively at home
Up to a point, Lord Copper.
Remember, though, that it might still be worth taking a hit on output per office worker. After all, the cost of a desk space is non-trivial, especially in Central London. See the recent fiasco at the Department for Education, where demanding everyone return to the office meant that there weren't enough desks for everyone.
And if remote/hybrid work is seen as attractive by employees, that eventually means that non-remote work becomes something employers have to pay a premium for.
Now it is possible that Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg have gone through the calculations and concluded that a return to the office is the right thing to do. Of course, it'spossible, but is it really that likely?
Yes, that is an important point. My most recent global megacorp was explicitly saving money on London office space. The one before that rather stumbled into it. As you say, the government has been selling or ending leases on property for some time.
I'm convinced the same people who lecture people on holding the correct Woke attitudes today would have been the most conservative and religious people in, say, Victorian times. Their beliefs change over the generations, but their hectoring and lecturing doesn't.
Do you consider it woke/lecturing/hectoring when the government and others tells businesses and people that they must work from the office?
Doesn't that depend upon how effective the output of those people who work from home is compared to when they didn't work from home ?
Now how much the government knows what the general effectiveness of working from home is they must by now have a pretty good idea about how government departments are affected by working from home.
If its negatively so then they have every right, indeed a responsibility, to restrict working from home.
What other organisations do is up to themselves to sort out.
Speaking personally I would do less work and do it less effectively if I worked from home.
How many others are like that ?
Don't know but its a three part division:
1) Those who work less effectively at home and are honest about it 2) Those who work less effectively at home but lie about it 3) Those who work as effectively at home
After a decade working from home, I'd say it is more complicated than that, and the biggest impact was not on individual productivity but on team-building, organisational integration (there is probably a better term for that) and mentorship. And this comes from international and global companies who were already used to remote working.
And then there is the question of workspace. Moving from a crowded and noisy open-plan office to a converted spare bedroom overlooking the garden is not the same as transitioning from a dedicated, air-conditioned office to the kitchen table in a crowded flat scrabbling for space with a partner and two home-schooling children.
Certainly every individual worker and every individual employer will be different.
But it should be pretty apparent now how effective working from home is for both worker and employer.
Where its positive for both it should continue and where negative for both should stop.
Where its positive for one but negative for the other it becomes contentious.
The point is that some effects, like less efficient on-boarding and mentorship, will take time, possibly years, to become obvious. Others, like the impact of children at home, will vary from month to month. It is not as simple as comparing this week's numbers to last.
Sure but employers should already have a good idea about the effectiveness of working from home on their output.
And its on this 'narrow' evaluation that decisions on working from home are likely to be made.
The long term 'wider' positives or negatives can only be speculated on at present.
Burn down the Student Loans Company. They're too stupid to exist.
--> Email to me to support Middle Child's continued student finance. That's fine, no problem.
-> Please log in with email address and password. No problem.
-> "What is your secret answer?" To WHAT?
Like - so, you asked me years ago a question when Eldest Daughter started out and I gave an answer - but it's considered polite to give a clue as to WHAT THE BLOODY QUESTION WAS!!!
Mother' maiden name didn't work Dream job as a child didn't work Town of birth didn't work.
GIVE ME A SODDING CLUE YOU MORONS!
Hope this helps but for us the secret answer was the road you lived in when you were 10. As it is for both of us it might be the question for all.
I posted the other day I like chopping wood when frustrated and having dealt with them I needed a forest. Since then it had got more frustrating. I have only just had to deal with them because my wife retired and as I am already retired we have gone from a high income (so little dealing with them) to next to nothing. We have to prove our income and some of what they want is impossible. They just cater for the norm and not people who have less normal income.
It will be a strong password with at least 12 letters, including 2 numbers and an exclamation mark.
I'm convinced the same people who lecture people on holding the correct Woke attitudes today would have been the most conservative and religious people in, say, Victorian times. Their beliefs change over the generations, but their hectoring and lecturing doesn't.
Do you consider it woke/lecturing/hectoring when the government and others tells businesses and people that they must work from the office?
Doesn't that depend upon how effective the output of those people who work from home is compared to when they didn't work from home ?
Now how much the government knows what the general effectiveness of working from home is they must by now have a pretty good idea about how government departments are affected by working from home.
If its negatively so then they have every right, indeed a responsibility, to restrict working from home.
What other organisations do is up to themselves to sort out.
Speaking personally I would do less work and do it less effectively if I worked from home.
How many others are like that ?
Don't know but its a three part division:
1) Those who work less effectively at home and are honest about it 2) Those who work less effectively at home but lie about it 3) Those who work as effectively at home
After a decade working from home, I'd say it is more complicated than that, and the biggest impact was not on individual productivity but on team-building, organisational integration (there is probably a better term for that) and mentorship. And this comes from international and global companies who were already used to remote working.
And then there is the question of workspace. Moving from a crowded and noisy open-plan office to a converted spare bedroom overlooking the garden is not the same as transitioning from a dedicated, air-conditioned office to the kitchen table in a crowded flat scrabbling for space with a partner and two home-schooling children.
Certainly every individual worker and every individual employer will be different.
But it should be pretty apparent now how effective working from home is for both worker and employer.
Where its positive for both it should continue and where negative for both should stop.
Where its positive for one but negative for the other it becomes contentious.
The point is that some effects, like less efficient on-boarding and mentorship, will take time, possibly years, to become obvious. Others, like the impact of children at home, will vary from month to month. It is not as simple as comparing this week's numbers to last.
The less effective on boarding is a concern where I work. The interns/grads cling to the office to be there when other people do their one day a week in.
At a previous job, the IT department challenged us to come up with the most unguessable, yet personal memorable password (not a bad competition, as it made us all think). I offered them "Trotsky1847". "A Russian revolutionary personally acquainted with my grandfather with the year of his 19th century birth."
I won, the prize being a chocolate Easter egg. Not sure Trotsky would have approved.
A cursory knowledge of Welsh is very helpful in constructing passwords.
I use Madagascan placenames
Is anyone going to guess "Tsiroanomandidy39"??
Yes. Both examples on this thread would be found by a password-cracking program that works by combining names from dictionaries with numbers. You might do slightly better putting the number at the start.
I'm convinced the same people who lecture people on holding the correct Woke attitudes today would have been the most conservative and religious people in, say, Victorian times. Their beliefs change over the generations, but their hectoring and lecturing doesn't.
Do you consider it woke/lecturing/hectoring when the government and others tells businesses and people that they must work from the office?
Doesn't that depend upon how effective the output of those people who work from home is compared to when they didn't work from home ?
Now how much the government knows what the general effectiveness of working from home is they must by now have a pretty good idea about how government departments are affected by working from home.
If its negatively so then they have every right, indeed a responsibility, to restrict working from home.
What other organisations do is up to themselves to sort out.
Speaking personally I would do less work and do it less effectively if I worked from home.
How many others are like that ?
Don't know but its a three part division:
1) Those who work less effectively at home and are honest about it 2) Those who work less effectively at home but lie about it 3) Those who work as effectively at home
After a decade working from home, I'd say it is more complicated than that, and the biggest impact was not on individual productivity but on team-building, organisational integration (there is probably a better term for that) and mentorship. And this comes from international and global companies who were already used to remote working.
And then there is the question of workspace. Moving from a crowded and noisy open-plan office to a converted spare bedroom overlooking the garden is not the same as transitioning from a dedicated, air-conditioned office to the kitchen table in a crowded flat scrabbling for space with a partner and two home-schooling children.
Certainly every individual worker and every individual employer will be different.
But it should be pretty apparent now how effective working from home is for both worker and employer.
Where its positive for both it should continue and where negative for both should stop.
Where its positive for one but negative for the other it becomes contentious.
The point is that some effects, like less efficient on-boarding and mentorship, will take time, possibly years, to become obvious. Others, like the impact of children at home, will vary from month to month. It is not as simple as comparing this week's numbers to last.
Sure but employers should already have a good idea about the effectiveness of working from home on their output.
And its on this 'narrow' evaluation that decisions on working from home are likely to be made.
The long term 'wider' positives or negatives can only be speculated on at present.
Up to a point. Remote working has been around for some time so there probably are already reviews of its issues, even if no-one looks at them. What are the pros and cons of offshoring software development or call-centre helplines, for instance?
ETA of course you are right that most decisions will be based on the short term, and perhaps even more on personal convenience and prejudice. Ask Jacob Rees-Mogg!
At a previous job, the IT department challenged us to come up with the most unguessable, yet personal memorable password (not a bad competition, as it made us all think). I offered them "Trotsky1847". "A Russian revolutionary personally acquainted with my grandfather with the year of his 19th century birth."
I won, the prize being a chocolate Easter egg. Not sure Trotsky would have approved.
A cursory knowledge of Welsh is very helpful in constructing passwords.
I use Madagascan placenames
Is anyone going to guess "Tsiroanomandidy39"??
Yes. Both examples on this thread would be found by a password-cracking program that works by combining names from dictionaries with numbers. You might do slightly better putting the number at the start.
OK, my go-to ultimate password is a tiny tiny village in the south of Madagascar, which is barely on Google maps, the name of which is very long and unpronounceable (I only remember it because I've been there) and is combined with three numbers
A computer would have to go through a practically infinite number of variations of letters and numbers before cracking it
Burn down the Student Loans Company. They're too stupid to exist.
--> Email to me to support Middle Child's continued student finance. That's fine, no problem.
-> Please log in with email address and password. No problem.
-> "What is your secret answer?" To WHAT?
Like - so, you asked me years ago a question when Eldest Daughter started out and I gave an answer - but it's considered polite to give a clue as to WHAT THE BLOODY QUESTION WAS!!!
Mother' maiden name didn't work Dream job as a child didn't work Town of birth didn't work.
GIVE ME A SODDING CLUE YOU MORONS!
Hope this helps but for us the secret answer was the road you lived in when you were 10. As it is for both of us it might be the question for all.
I posted the other day I like chopping wood when frustrated and having dealt with them I needed a forest. Since then it had got more frustrating. I have only just had to deal with them because my wife retired and as I am already retired we have gone from a high income (so little dealing with them) to next to nothing. We have to prove our income and some of what they want is impossible. They just cater for the norm and not people who have less normal income.
It will be a strong password with at least 12 letters, including 2 numbers and an exclamation mark.
It is not a password, it is your secret word (there is also a password). As for both of us it was the street we lived in when 10 and that is not something either of us use normally it was obviously something they asked of us.
On topic, there are three difficulties about cooperating with the Greens (and I speak as someone in coalition with them on the council). One is that they are the least pragmatic of all three parties - lots of Green members just want to fight for the cause wherever they live, win or lose. The second is that it's hard to know what to offer, since their best chance of a second MP is to defeat a Labour MP, and it's too much to expect a sitting MP to stand down for the sake of a deal. The third is that Green Party decisions are made by the local party, regardless of the national leadership's view.
The best realistic offer that I can see is that the Greens wouldn't contest key marginals, in return for being given a clear run in some county and district council wards. That would benefit everyone involved - Lab/LD by having a better shot at marginals, Greens by building up a solid infrastructure of local strength as a base for future advances. And there will be council seats that the Greens can win where the other parties can't, by appealing to environmental ex-Tories, a bit like the Teals in Australia.
But it's a complicated deal to pull off, and simply campaigning on "only we can beat the Tories" in the marginals may be the easier solution for Lab and LD candidates. Green voters are massively un-Tory, as the poll shows (only 6% would even *consider* voting Tory), and if a Tory seat is obviously marginal and there's a clear challenger, I'd think that 80% of the Green vote should be possible to borrow, with appropriate tact and respect.
At a previous job, the IT department challenged us to come up with the most unguessable, yet personal memorable password (not a bad competition, as it made us all think). I offered them "Trotsky1847". "A Russian revolutionary personally acquainted with my grandfather with the year of his 19th century birth."
I won, the prize being a chocolate Easter egg. Not sure Trotsky would have approved.
A cursory knowledge of Welsh is very helpful in constructing passwords.
At a previous job, the IT department challenged us to come up with the most unguessable, yet personal memorable password (not a bad competition, as it made us all think). I offered them "Trotsky1847". "A Russian revolutionary personally acquainted with my grandfather with the year of his 19th century birth."
I won, the prize being a chocolate Easter egg. Not sure Trotsky would have approved.
A cursory knowledge of Welsh is very helpful in constructing passwords.
I use Madagascan placenames
Is anyone going to guess "Tsiroanomandidy39"??
Yes. Both examples on this thread would be found by a password-cracking program that works by combining names from dictionaries with numbers. You might do slightly better putting the number at the start.
OK, my go-to ultimate password is a tiny tiny village in the south of Madagascar, which is barely on Google maps, the name of which is very long and unpronounceable (I only remember it because I've been there) and is combined with three numbers
A computer would have to go through a practically infinite number of variations of letters and numbers before cracking it
Yes. Unless, as actually happens, they use dictionaries of names and place names (and ordinary words, of course).
I'm convinced the same people who lecture people on holding the correct Woke attitudes today would have been the most conservative and religious people in, say, Victorian times. Their beliefs change over the generations, but their hectoring and lecturing doesn't.
Do you consider it woke/lecturing/hectoring when the government and others tells businesses and people that they must work from the office?
Doesn't that depend upon how effective the output of those people who work from home is compared to when they didn't work from home ?
Now how much the government knows what the general effectiveness of working from home is they must by now have a pretty good idea about how government departments are affected by working from home.
If its negatively so then they have every right, indeed a responsibility, to restrict working from home.
What other organisations do is up to themselves to sort out.
Speaking personally I would do less work and do it less effectively if I worked from home.
How many others are like that ?
Don't know but its a three part division:
1) Those who work less effectively at home and are honest about it 2) Those who work less effectively at home but lie about it 3) Those who work as effectively at home
Up to a point, Lord Copper.
Remember, though, that it might still be worth taking a hit on output per office worker. After all, the cost of a desk space is non-trivial, especially in Central London. See the recent fiasco at the Department for Education, where demanding everyone return to the office meant that there weren't enough desks for everyone.
And if remote/hybrid work is seen as attractive by employees, that eventually means that non-remote work becomes something employers have to pay a premium for.
Now it is possible that Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg have gone through the calculations and concluded that a return to the office is the right thing to do. Of course, it'spossible, but is it really that likely?
Well someone should have looked at the data and done the calculations.
But you highlight one of the contentious areas - where its in the interest of an organisation that employees work from home but not in the interests of the employees.
I suspect that long term we will see a drift to organisations which want working from home having a workforce which wants to work from home. And vice versa.
Getting to that final goal will involve much inconvenience for many employers and employees in upcoming years.
I'm convinced the same people who lecture people on holding the correct Woke attitudes today would have been the most conservative and religious people in, say, Victorian times. Their beliefs change over the generations, but their hectoring and lecturing doesn't.
Do you consider it woke/lecturing/hectoring when the government and others tells businesses and people that they must work from the office?
Doesn't that depend upon how effective the output of those people who work from home is compared to when they didn't work from home ?
Now how much the government knows what the general effectiveness of working from home is they must by now have a pretty good idea about how government departments are affected by working from home.
If its negatively so then they have every right, indeed a responsibility, to restrict working from home.
What other organisations do is up to themselves to sort out.
Speaking personally I would do less work and do it less effectively if I worked from home.
How many others are like that ?
Don't know but its a three part division:
1) Those who work less effectively at home and are honest about it 2) Those who work less effectively at home but lie about it 3) Those who work as effectively at home
I work more effectively, the fewer hours commuting is a game changer.
At a previous job, the IT department challenged us to come up with the most unguessable, yet personal memorable password (not a bad competition, as it made us all think). I offered them "Trotsky1847". "A Russian revolutionary personally acquainted with my grandfather with the year of his 19th century birth."
I won, the prize being a chocolate Easter egg. Not sure Trotsky would have approved.
A cursory knowledge of Welsh is very helpful in constructing passwords.
I use Madagascan placenames
Is anyone going to guess "Tsiroanomandidy39"??
Yes. Both examples on this thread would be found by a password-cracking program that works by combining names from dictionaries with numbers. You might do slightly better putting the number at the start.
OK, my go-to ultimate password is a tiny tiny village in the south of Madagascar, which is barely on Google maps, the name of which is very long and unpronounceable (I only remember it because I've been there) and is combined with three numbers
A computer would have to go through a practically infinite number of variations of letters and numbers before cracking it
Yes. Unless, as actually happens, they use dictionaries of names and place names (and ordinary words, of course).
I find this genuinely intriguing
So they have a list of ALL the placenames in the world, right down to tiny hamlets (like this). That must be many millions of places. Hundreds of millions?
So they can run through all of those - plus every single other word or name - and then combine each with three numbers, and get each of these digits in the right order?
Does that not take years? And a ridiculous, unaffordable amount of computing power? It seems near-impossible to me
But I am happy to be schooled! My work is done for the day and I am heading down to the waterside for a vino
The best hope the Conservatives now have is to ride out the storm and hope it has blown through by 2024.
It's probably too late now to save things by ditching the oaf at the top. The more he ramps up the culture wars and whips the Daily Mail into propaganda, the more hardened but smaller their voter base will become. We've seen this all before and it NEVER works.
Prepare for a landslide defeat.
the Horror that is Woke
It's really little wonder that you and I dislike each other!
I note that Australia has just booted out the right. I suspect, fairly strongly, that voters are turning left as usually happens during an economic downturn which the Right have failed to stem.
The cost of living crisis is going to do for the Conservatives but the likelihood, or inevitability according to the Telegraph, of recession will really screw them. Hence why I think a landslide defeat is on the cards.
Appealing to culture wars in a time of economic crisis is a well-worn tactic. It might have worked in Germany in the 1930s but recent history suggests it won't now.
The only caution I would make is that a RMT rail strike led by 3 Putin apologists paralysing the country would play into Boris's hands (or whoever is conservative leader) and at the same time Rishi comes to his senses and delivers a fair and sensible package of measures to address some of the worst effects of our current col crisis could well change the narrative
Yes I totally agree with you about this.
As a Left-leaner the thought of a national rail strike fills me with political dread, for the very reason you suggest.
It could play right into Boris' hands.
A true left leaner would support the RMT standing up for the 2,500 safety critical employees threatened with dismissal and dedicated rail staff who have been offered a wage increase that is effectively a massive pay cut. If there is a strike it is due to management failing to engage. The RMT want a fair solution.
Morning Taz. I was surprised to read yesterday that on Scotrail , once qualified and past probation period train drivers get 48K and Doctor's once qualified get 40K. Doctors may have advantages later but it seems from that to me at least that train drivers are not badly paid.
Good morning Malc. Hope all is well with you.
Yes, rail drivers are well recompensed although they have to spend quite a bit of time training for it before being able to drive solo. The husband of one of my wife’s co workers is currently training to be a metro driver in the north east. It’s around 2 years to train.
Tube drivers are very well recompensed too.
However the drivers are a small portion of the workers employed in rail and represented by the RMT.
I hope they can come to an agreement without resorting to strike action.
Also, on the more macabre side, Train drivers can kill more people than doctors when they make a simple mistake...
That's why airline pilots are paid a fortune.
On a point of PB pedantry, a 'normally' is needed in front of 'kill'..
Worst rail disaster in UK ascribed to driver error* = Harrow and Wealdstone 1952, 112 dead.
Dr Shipman: 218 ++
* albeit in patchy fog. Mind, 'driver error' is often an iffy verdict ...
I’m not sure Shipman’s total was due to an “error”…
O/t but. Just after asking Mr Jessop about his wildlife observations yesterday morning yesterday stopped being a GOOD DAY. Because I fell ….. tripped an uneven pavement…., en route to the paper shop, was carted off, by a very cheerful and positive ambulance crew, to hospital, was checked over quite thoroughly, including by the frailty team …..84 year old has nasty fall…… and was finally picked up, still unsteady on my feet by my wife, at about 3pm. Broke my glasses, have two black eyes and various other grazes on my face and arms. Looks dreadful! So life has changed again.
However, most of the blue-tit chicks seem fit and healthy!
Lord luvaduck
Nasty. Hope you get well sharpish
On the subject of falls, I was walking around a monastery in Meteora a couple of days ago and I saw a fit, healthy thirty something Asian-American woman take a tremendous clattering fall, onto hard stone, scattering all her cameras and bags and everything - because she missed just one step
Luckily she got away with a sprained ankle and a big scare (for everyone: it looked horrific) but she was inches away from a smashed face, lost teeth, broken bones - and maybe something worse. A fall onto stone can severely injure or kill you - a friend of mine got frontal lobe brain damage exactly this way (he was sober, BTW, but a bit frail from an illness, hence the fall)
We are all moments from disaster. Eat drink and be merry, and scatter ye rosebuds
I saw a horrible one years back. I was walking on (I think) Milk Hill, Wiltshire's highest point. A mountain biker passed me; no problems, he gave me a wide berth, then approached a stile. He got off his bike, hoisted it onto his shoulder, and went over the stile. Except he mis stepped and ended up badly twisting his ankle. A friend of his soon arrived on another bike to help us out.
From my perspective as an onlooker, it almost looked like it happened in slow motion.
Ouch. Hope you recover, and don't have a permanent restriction on mobility.
Is it worth pointing this out to a local Councillor, which in the circs may well get it prioritised.
I've been watching my young 6x year old neighbour up his scaffolding, then a ladder, powerwashing his roof from *above* the last couple of days (which is the only way to do it). Not something I do.
"Ukraine rules out ceasefire deal that gives land to Russia"
Oh well no ceasefire then.
Alas, neither side have suffered enough casualties to bring a degree of pragmatism to the matter.
We still regularly get posts on pb.com exulting (ugh) about Russian deaths. It is in the nature of war that Ukrainian deaths will be comparable to Russian deaths.
We can look forward to a Vietnam War on Europe's doorstep at this rate.
At some point, it will dawn on Biden & Johnson that a massive war, a tragic & ongoing refugee crisis, economic sanctions that hurt everyones' economy, together with major famines in a number of poor countries, are not going to help the re-election chances of either the Democrats or the Tories.
But, we are not there yet ... there has not been enough killing to satisfy those who live over the hills and far away.
I expect it will end up ... maybe in 2 years time as the Democrats and the Tories grapple with their electoral prospects ... with Ukraine being forced to give up some land for guarantees of protection from the US/West.
Good post It's easy to be gung ho about war when we are not doing the fighting and tens of thousands of Ukrainians are dying How would we like it if Manchester was completely destroyed for example as Mariupol has been
The stupid North Vietnamese could have saved so much pain and suffering by surrendering, couldn’t they?
We solved the land-for-peace issue the other day, anyway. The Ukrainians keep their land. Any other country that wants a land-for-peace deal gives Russia some land.
Burn down the Student Loans Company. They're too stupid to exist.
--> Email to me to support Middle Child's continued student finance. That's fine, no problem.
-> Please log in with email address and password. No problem.
-> "What is your secret answer?" To WHAT?
Like - so, you asked me years ago a question when Eldest Daughter started out and I gave an answer - but it's considered polite to give a clue as to WHAT THE BLOODY QUESTION WAS!!!
Mother' maiden name didn't work Dream job as a child didn't work Town of birth didn't work.
GIVE ME A SODDING CLUE YOU MORONS!
Hope this helps but for us the secret answer was the road you lived in when you were 10. As it is for both of us it might be the question for all.
I posted the other day I like chopping wood when frustrated and having dealt with them I needed a forest. Since then it had got more frustrating. I have only just had to deal with them because my wife retired and as I am already retired we have gone from a high income (so little dealing with them) to next to nothing. We have to prove our income and some of what they want is impossible. They just cater for the norm and not people who have less normal income.
It will be a strong password with at least 12 letters, including 2 numbers and an exclamation mark.
It is not a password, it is your secret word (there is also a password). As for both of us it was the street we lived in when 10 and that is not something either of us use normally it was obviously something they asked of us.
I would be stuffed then: I lived on a farm and the address was: Name of Farm Name of Town County Postcode.
All women shortlist chosen for Conservative members to choose from as their candidate for the Tiverton and Honiton by election. All 3 are local women from the area
No: "The three women were chosen on merit rather than as part of a deliberate “all-women shortlist”. The idea of a quota system was rejected by Michelle Donelan, the universities minister, as “demeaning” earlier this month."
That's the difference between non-Woke and Woke. Fairness not ideology.
At a previous job, the IT department challenged us to come up with the most unguessable, yet personal memorable password (not a bad competition, as it made us all think). I offered them "Trotsky1847". "A Russian revolutionary personally acquainted with my grandfather with the year of his 19th century birth."
I won, the prize being a chocolate Easter egg. Not sure Trotsky would have approved.
A cursory knowledge of Welsh is very helpful in constructing passwords.
I use Madagascan placenames
Is anyone going to guess "Tsiroanomandidy39"??
Yes. Both examples on this thread would be found by a password-cracking program that works by combining names from dictionaries with numbers. You might do slightly better putting the number at the start.
OK, my go-to ultimate password is a tiny tiny village in the south of Madagascar, which is barely on Google maps, the name of which is very long and unpronounceable (I only remember it because I've been there) and is combined with three numbers
A computer would have to go through a practically infinite number of variations of letters and numbers before cracking it
Yes. Unless, as actually happens, they use dictionaries of names and place names (and ordinary words, of course).
I find this genuinely intriguing
So they have a list of ALL the placenames in the world, right down to tiny hamlets (like this). That must be many millions of places. Hundreds of millions?
So they can run through all of those - plus every single other word or name - and then combine each with three numbers, and get each of these digits in the right order?
Does that not take years? And a ridiculous, unaffordable amount of computing power? It seems near-impossible to me
But I am happy to be schooled! My work is done for the day and I am heading down to the waterside for a vino
Why wouldn't each country that does a census or has a map have such a list available?
I'm convinced the same people who lecture people on holding the correct Woke attitudes today would have been the most conservative and religious people in, say, Victorian times. Their beliefs change over the generations, but their hectoring and lecturing doesn't.
Do you consider it woke/lecturing/hectoring when the government and others tells businesses and people that they must work from the office?
Doesn't that depend upon how effective the output of those people who work from home is compared to when they didn't work from home ?
Now how much the government knows what the general effectiveness of working from home is they must by now have a pretty good idea about how government departments are affected by working from home.
If its negatively so then they have every right, indeed a responsibility, to restrict working from home.
What other organisations do is up to themselves to sort out.
Speaking personally I would do less work and do it less effectively if I worked from home.
How many others are like that ?
Don't know but its a three part division:
1) Those who work less effectively at home and are honest about it 2) Those who work less effectively at home but lie about it 3) Those who work as effectively at home
After a decade working from home, I'd say it is more complicated than that, and the biggest impact was not on individual productivity but on team-building, organisational integration (there is probably a better term for that) and mentorship. And this comes from international and global companies who were already used to remote working.
And then there is the question of workspace. Moving from a crowded and noisy open-plan office to a converted spare bedroom overlooking the garden is not the same as transitioning from a dedicated, air-conditioned office to the kitchen table in a crowded flat scrabbling for space with a partner and two home-schooling children.
My trouble is I find the commute expensive and knackering but I'm really fed up of using MSTeams. And, no matter how I tweak my settings, I can't stop my email and chats from constantly pinging me notifications whilst I try and listen, so I tune out.
Ideally, I'd like to do emails in three batches, morning, lunch, and mid-late afternoon, and then to free to focus on my work and meetings. But I have two dozen twenty-somethings who constantly want to ask me questions.
I'm convinced the same people who lecture people on holding the correct Woke attitudes today would have been the most conservative and religious people in, say, Victorian times. Their beliefs change over the generations, but their hectoring and lecturing doesn't.
Do you consider it woke/lecturing/hectoring when the government and others tells businesses and people that they must work from the office?
Doesn't that depend upon how effective the output of those people who work from home is compared to when they didn't work from home ?
Now how much the government knows what the general effectiveness of working from home is they must by now have a pretty good idea about how government departments are affected by working from home.
If its negatively so then they have every right, indeed a responsibility, to restrict working from home.
What other organisations do is up to themselves to sort out.
Speaking personally I would do less work and do it less effectively if I worked from home.
How many others are like that ?
Don't know but its a three part division:
1) Those who work less effectively at home and are honest about it 2) Those who work less effectively at home but lie about it 3) Those who work as effectively at home
Up to a point, Lord Copper.
Remember, though, that it might still be worth taking a hit on output per office worker. After all, the cost of a desk space is non-trivial, especially in Central London. See the recent fiasco at the Department for Education, where demanding everyone return to the office meant that there weren't enough desks for everyone.
And if remote/hybrid work is seen as attractive by employees, that eventually means that non-remote work becomes something employers have to pay a premium for.
Now it is possible that Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg have gone through the calculations and concluded that a return to the office is the right thing to do. Of course, it'spossible, but is it really that likely?
Well someone should have looked at the data and done the calculations.
But you highlight one of the contentious areas - where its in the interest of an organisation that employees work from home but not in the interests of the employees.
I suspect that long term we will see a drift to organisations which want working from home having a workforce which wants to work from home. And vice versa.
Getting to that final goal will involve much inconvenience for many employers and employees in upcoming years.
One other factor on the WFH debate is salary. It is great to be paid a London salary and work in some rural idyll, possibly even abroad where accommodation is cheap and domestic servants cheaper. But already some employers are cottoning on to this and looking to reduce wages (although at a time of skills shortages, that is not possible).
And I expect some will one day be caught out by different employment laws and tax issues in different countries (or even states in the US, for instance). I'm sceptical that some 20-person start-up really has an HR department that is up to speed on this. Is your Glasgow WFH-er on English or Scottish PAYE rates, for instance? Is the chap in Berlin protected by German anti-age discrimination law?
Burn down the Student Loans Company. They're too stupid to exist.
--> Email to me to support Middle Child's continued student finance. That's fine, no problem.
-> Please log in with email address and password. No problem.
-> "What is your secret answer?" To WHAT?
Like - so, you asked me years ago a question when Eldest Daughter started out and I gave an answer - but it's considered polite to give a clue as to WHAT THE BLOODY QUESTION WAS!!!
Mother' maiden name didn't work Dream job as a child didn't work Town of birth didn't work.
GIVE ME A SODDING CLUE YOU MORONS!
In August 2011, I was asked for proof of my financial situation.
I sent them a bank statement dated July 2011.
They sent a reply, handwritten, requesting one less then three months old.
I sent them a further handwritten reply, plus information on WEA adult literacy courses in Glasgow.
I'm convinced the same people who lecture people on holding the correct Woke attitudes today would have been the most conservative and religious people in, say, Victorian times. Their beliefs change over the generations, but their hectoring and lecturing doesn't.
Do you consider it woke/lecturing/hectoring when the government and others tells businesses and people that they must work from the office?
Doesn't that depend upon how effective the output of those people who work from home is compared to when they didn't work from home ?
Now how much the government knows what the general effectiveness of working from home is they must by now have a pretty good idea about how government departments are affected by working from home.
If its negatively so then they have every right, indeed a responsibility, to restrict working from home.
What other organisations do is up to themselves to sort out.
Speaking personally I would do less work and do it less effectively if I worked from home.
How many others are like that ?
Don't know but its a three part division:
1) Those who work less effectively at home and are honest about it 2) Those who work less effectively at home but lie about it 3) Those who work as effectively at home
I work more effectively, the fewer hours commuting is a game changer.
So a few hours commuting per day wore you down and reduced your effectiveness ?
I can believe it - I have an under ten minute commute and that's a big advantage to both me and my employer.
The changes caused by the disruption from covid are fascinating and often very individual.
At a previous job, the IT department challenged us to come up with the most unguessable, yet personal memorable password (not a bad competition, as it made us all think). I offered them "Trotsky1847". "A Russian revolutionary personally acquainted with my grandfather with the year of his 19th century birth."
I won, the prize being a chocolate Easter egg. Not sure Trotsky would have approved.
A cursory knowledge of Welsh is very helpful in constructing passwords.
I use Madagascan placenames
Is anyone going to guess "Tsiroanomandidy39"??
Yes. Both examples on this thread would be found by a password-cracking program that works by combining names from dictionaries with numbers. You might do slightly better putting the number at the start.
OK, my go-to ultimate password is a tiny tiny village in the south of Madagascar, which is barely on Google maps, the name of which is very long and unpronounceable (I only remember it because I've been there) and is combined with three numbers
A computer would have to go through a practically infinite number of variations of letters and numbers before cracking it
Yes. Unless, as actually happens, they use dictionaries of names and place names (and ordinary words, of course).
I find this genuinely intriguing
So they have a list of ALL the placenames in the world, right down to tiny hamlets (like this). That must be many millions of places. Hundreds of millions?
So they can run through all of those - plus every single other word or name - and then combine each with three numbers, and get each of these digits in the right order?
Does that not take years? And a ridiculous, unaffordable amount of computing power? It seems near-impossible to me
But I am happy to be schooled! My work is done for the day and I am heading down to the waterside for a vino
There are “dictionaries” of every password ever stolen out there - quite literally hundreds of millions of passwords.
Fortunately most systems slow down password tries and lock accounts after x tries now. Most.
The hack often used at the moment is to steal passwords from one site. Since many use an email address as the ID, and many many people reuse the same password…. Such a cache enables the hackers to try accessing accounts at all the popular sites.
The latest wrinkle is identifying how people change their passwords - a number at the end, incrementing is very common. So the automated hacking setup recognise this and tries “ComplicatedPassword46” then “ComplicatedPassword47”…..
The best hope the Conservatives now have is to ride out the storm and hope it has blown through by 2024.
It's probably too late now to save things by ditching the oaf at the top. The more he ramps up the culture wars and whips the Daily Mail into propaganda, the more hardened but smaller their voter base will become. We've seen this all before and it NEVER works.
Prepare for a landslide defeat.
the Horror that is Woke
It's really little wonder that you and I dislike each other!
I note that Australia has just booted out the right. I suspect, fairly strongly, that voters are turning left as usually happens during an economic downturn which the Right have failed to stem.
The cost of living crisis is going to do for the Conservatives but the likelihood, or inevitability according to the Telegraph, of recession will really screw them. Hence why I think a landslide defeat is on the cards.
Appealing to culture wars in a time of economic crisis is a well-worn tactic. It might have worked in Germany in the 1930s but recent history suggests it won't now.
Yes you're on the Woke left and I'm on the non-Woke right, but for all your loudly avowed good intentions and self-regarding progressive values, the weird thing is that I am obviously nicer than you
eg there is no way I would join the board of a morning and make some random, tiny, aimless yet spiteful aside about a poster not even present. Simply wouldn't occur to me. Not in my nature.
Yet it is in yours. Something to ponder, I suggest
It's typical of the Woke.
They are actually rather nasty and unpleasant (and secretly hate themselves for it) so wear the Wokery as a public cloak to make themselves feel better and communicate what they'd like others to think about them.
Doesn't work, of course - because they know it's vacuous and insincere.
This is absolutely true and completely accords with my experience
For the purposes of clarity and kindness, this is not aimed at @Heathener - I simply don't know her well enough to say anything serious about her - but yes, the Woke-iest people I know in real life are often the nastiest. Bitchy, resentful, humourless, with a tendency to supercilious preaching and, if they can get away with it, bullying
This is one reason why Wokeness is so corrosive and aggressive and gets such a strong reaction. It is often pressed by the most annoying types: they would have been the hectoring, ultra-conservative prudes in Victorian times
This is also a reason why the Trans-Terf wars are so vicious, they are prosecuted by the Woke on both sides, so they try and bully each other. Ugly
I have a primary client at the moment is precisely like this.
A deeply unpleasant and self-obsessed woman who spends all her time briefing heavily against others behind their backs and creating a toxic environment - she is entirely untrustworthy and absolutely a bully - whilst brandishing her credentials for every national/international day for this and that under the sun all over LinkedIn.
My wife, shrewd as she is, continually points out to me that this means she has deep-seated insecurities and issues - not those who she targets.
Your wife is right and we all come across people like this. Nothing to do with wokeness and all to do with insecurity as your wife says.
I do think you have gone over the top re @Heathener this morning. Done the same myself with others in the past so not a criticism, just saying.
I haven't gone over the top at all.
My comment wasn't directed at anyone but rather the Woke in general. It was in response to one that was but that's quite a different thing.
It some have responded to take it personally then that says quite a lot about them, in my view.
You can't dehumanise someone and then get upset when you're called out on it.
Woah. I haven't dehumanised anyone and there's nothing to be "called out" on. My comment is an entirely reasonable one and I stand by it.
This is simply the left-wing herd rallying to defend one of their own because they think they've been targeted and have been triggered by the use of the word Woke.
'left-wing herd' - you don't have a scooby do you?
Tory herd, used to be a thing on here. It's almost all entirely gone.
Now, there's a left-wing herd. You can see it in the types of people that post, the volume of those posts and what they like.
I don't blame them. This Conservative government is on its way out, so it's natural. If you'd come on here in 2009-2010 it basically felt like a Tory site. The only dissenters were Jonathan, Southam and Tim and a few Lib Dems.
If people are on the up and feel like things are heading their way they will post more often and more enthusiastically. If not, they will keep quiet and keep their heads down.
"Ukraine rules out ceasefire deal that gives land to Russia"
Oh well no ceasefire then.
Alas, neither side have suffered enough casualties to bring a degree of pragmatism to the matter.
We still regularly get posts on pb.com exulting (ugh) about Russian deaths. It is in the nature of war that Ukrainian deaths will be comparable to Russian deaths.
We can look forward to a Vietnam War on Europe's doorstep at this rate.
At some point, it will dawn on Biden & Johnson that a massive war, a tragic & ongoing refugee crisis, economic sanctions that hurt everyones' economy, together with major famines in a number of poor countries, are not going to help the re-election chances of either the Democrats or the Tories.
But, we are not there yet ... there has not been enough killing to satisfy those who live over the hills and far away.
I expect it will end up ... maybe in 2 years time as the Democrats and the Tories grapple with their electoral prospects ... with Ukraine being forced to give up some land for guarantees of protection from the US/West.
Good post It's easy to be gung ho about war when we are not doing the fighting and tens of thousands of Ukrainians are dying How would we like it if Manchester was completely destroyed for example as Mariupol has been
The stupid North Vietnamese could have saved so much pain and suffering by surrendering, couldn’t they?
We solved the land-for-peace issue the other day, anyway. The Ukrainians keep their land. Any other country that wants a land-for-peace deal gives Russia some land.
Which bits of Wales should we give them?
It was not the North Vietnamese that were sustained by American weapons. It was the South Vietnamese.
Only a moron could come up with such a stupid analogy. Time for you to start some insane babbling about White Australia?
And yes, the South Vietnamese should have surrendered. They did after all in the end, once the US got bored.
I'm convinced the same people who lecture people on holding the correct Woke attitudes today would have been the most conservative and religious people in, say, Victorian times. Their beliefs change over the generations, but their hectoring and lecturing doesn't.
Do you consider it woke/lecturing/hectoring when the government and others tells businesses and people that they must work from the office?
Doesn't that depend upon how effective the output of those people who work from home is compared to when they didn't work from home ?
Now how much the government knows what the general effectiveness of working from home is they must by now have a pretty good idea about how government departments are affected by working from home.
If its negatively so then they have every right, indeed a responsibility, to restrict working from home.
What other organisations do is up to themselves to sort out.
Speaking personally I would do less work and do it less effectively if I worked from home.
How many others are like that ?
Don't know but its a three part division:
1) Those who work less effectively at home and are honest about it 2) Those who work less effectively at home but lie about it 3) Those who work as effectively at home
After a decade working from home, I'd say it is more complicated than that, and the biggest impact was not on individual productivity but on team-building, organisational integration (there is probably a better term for that) and mentorship. And this comes from international and global companies who were already used to remote working.
And then there is the question of workspace. Moving from a crowded and noisy open-plan office to a converted spare bedroom overlooking the garden is not the same as transitioning from a dedicated, air-conditioned office to the kitchen table in a crowded flat scrabbling for space with a partner and two home-schooling children.
My trouble is I find the commute expensive and knackering but I'm really fed up of using MSTeams. And, no matter how I tweak my settings, I can't stop my email and chats from constantly pinging me notifications whilst I try and listen, so I tune out.
Ideally, I'd like to do emails in three batches, morning, lunch, and mid-late afternoon, and then to free to focus on my work and meetings. But I have two dozen twenty-somethings who constantly want to ask me questions.
Ah, there is a setting for that. Trouble is, I can't remember it offhand but someone might know. As an aside, it is the sort of thing all good employers should have in their IT handbooks, if they are still a thing.
I'm convinced the same people who lecture people on holding the correct Woke attitudes today would have been the most conservative and religious people in, say, Victorian times. Their beliefs change over the generations, but their hectoring and lecturing doesn't.
Do you consider it woke/lecturing/hectoring when the government and others tells businesses and people that they must work from the office?
Doesn't that depend upon how effective the output of those people who work from home is compared to when they didn't work from home ?
Now how much the government knows what the general effectiveness of working from home is they must by now have a pretty good idea about how government departments are affected by working from home.
If its negatively so then they have every right, indeed a responsibility, to restrict working from home.
What other organisations do is up to themselves to sort out.
Speaking personally I would do less work and do it less effectively if I worked from home.
How many others are like that ?
Don't know but its a three part division:
1) Those who work less effectively at home and are honest about it 2) Those who work less effectively at home but lie about it 3) Those who work as effectively at home
Up to a point, Lord Copper.
Remember, though, that it might still be worth taking a hit on output per office worker. After all, the cost of a desk space is non-trivial, especially in Central London. See the recent fiasco at the Department for Education, where demanding everyone return to the office meant that there weren't enough desks for everyone.
And if remote/hybrid work is seen as attractive by employees, that eventually means that non-remote work becomes something employers have to pay a premium for.
Now it is possible that Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg have gone through the calculations and concluded that a return to the office is the right thing to do. Of course, it'spossible, but is it really that likely?
Well someone should have looked at the data and done the calculations.
But you highlight one of the contentious areas - where its in the interest of an organisation that employees work from home but not in the interests of the employees.
I suspect that long term we will see a drift to organisations which want working from home having a workforce which wants to work from home. And vice versa.
Getting to that final goal will involve much inconvenience for many employers and employees in upcoming years.
One other factor on the WFH debate is salary. It is great to be paid a London salary and work in some rural idyll, possibly even abroad where accommodation is cheap and domestic servants cheaper. But already some employers are cottoning on to this and looking to reduce wages (although at a time of skills shortages, that is not possible).
And I expect some will one day be caught out by different employment laws and tax issues in different countries (or even states in the US, for instance). I'm sceptical that some 20-person start-up really has an HR department that is up to speed on this. Is your Glasgow WFH-er on English or Scottish PAYE rates, for instance? Is the chap in Berlin protected by German anti-age discrimination law?
Employers will pay the market rate they need to pay to get the talent they want.
I'm convinced the same people who lecture people on holding the correct Woke attitudes today would have been the most conservative and religious people in, say, Victorian times. Their beliefs change over the generations, but their hectoring and lecturing doesn't.
Do you consider it woke/lecturing/hectoring when the government and others tells businesses and people that they must work from the office?
Doesn't that depend upon how effective the output of those people who work from home is compared to when they didn't work from home ?
Now how much the government knows what the general effectiveness of working from home is they must by now have a pretty good idea about how government departments are affected by working from home.
If its negatively so then they have every right, indeed a responsibility, to restrict working from home.
What other organisations do is up to themselves to sort out.
Speaking personally I would do less work and do it less effectively if I worked from home.
How many others are like that ?
Don't know but its a three part division:
1) Those who work less effectively at home and are honest about it 2) Those who work less effectively at home but lie about it 3) Those who work as effectively at home
After a decade working from home, I'd say it is more complicated than that, and the biggest impact was not on individual productivity but on team-building, organisational integration (there is probably a better term for that) and mentorship. And this comes from international and global companies who were already used to remote working.
And then there is the question of workspace. Moving from a crowded and noisy open-plan office to a converted spare bedroom overlooking the garden is not the same as transitioning from a dedicated, air-conditioned office to the kitchen table in a crowded flat scrabbling for space with a partner and two home-schooling children.
My trouble is I find the commute expensive and knackering but I'm really fed up of using MSTeams. And, no matter how I tweak my settings, I can't stop my email and chats from constantly pinging me notifications whilst I try and listen, so I tune out.
Ideally, I'd like to do emails in three batches, morning, lunch, and mid-late afternoon, and then to free to focus on my work and meetings. But I have two dozen twenty-somethings who constantly want to ask me questions.
Could you use different email addresses or different computers for different tasks ?
I'm convinced the same people who lecture people on holding the correct Woke attitudes today would have been the most conservative and religious people in, say, Victorian times. Their beliefs change over the generations, but their hectoring and lecturing doesn't.
Do you consider it woke/lecturing/hectoring when the government and others tells businesses and people that they must work from the office?
Doesn't that depend upon how effective the output of those people who work from home is compared to when they didn't work from home ?
Now how much the government knows what the general effectiveness of working from home is they must by now have a pretty good idea about how government departments are affected by working from home.
If its negatively so then they have every right, indeed a responsibility, to restrict working from home.
What other organisations do is up to themselves to sort out.
Speaking personally I would do less work and do it less effectively if I worked from home.
How many others are like that ?
Don't know but its a three part division:
1) Those who work less effectively at home and are honest about it 2) Those who work less effectively at home but lie about it 3) Those who work as effectively at home
After a decade working from home, I'd say it is more complicated than that, and the biggest impact was not on individual productivity but on team-building, organisational integration (there is probably a better term for that) and mentorship. And this comes from international and global companies who were already used to remote working.
And then there is the question of workspace. Moving from a crowded and noisy open-plan office to a converted spare bedroom overlooking the garden is not the same as transitioning from a dedicated, air-conditioned office to the kitchen table in a crowded flat scrabbling for space with a partner and two home-schooling children.
My trouble is I find the commute expensive and knackering but I'm really fed up of using MSTeams. And, no matter how I tweak my settings, I can't stop my email and chats from constantly pinging me notifications whilst I try and listen, so I tune out.
Ideally, I'd like to do emails in three batches, morning, lunch, and mid-late afternoon, and then to free to focus on my work and meetings. But I have two dozen twenty-somethings who constantly want to ask me questions.
Ah, there is a setting for that. Trouble is, I can't remember it offhand but someone might know. As an aside, it is the sort of thing all good employers should have in their IT handbooks, if they are still a thing.
Thanks. If you figure it out, please do let me know.
It drives me crackers. And I have a short attention span as it is, so I'm easily distracted.
"Ukraine rules out ceasefire deal that gives land to Russia"
Oh well no ceasefire then.
Alas, neither side have suffered enough casualties to bring a degree of pragmatism to the matter.
We still regularly get posts on pb.com exulting (ugh) about Russian deaths. It is in the nature of war that Ukrainian deaths will be comparable to Russian deaths.
We can look forward to a Vietnam War on Europe's doorstep at this rate.
At some point, it will dawn on Biden & Johnson that a massive war, a tragic & ongoing refugee crisis, economic sanctions that hurt everyones' economy, together with major famines in a number of poor countries, are not going to help the re-election chances of either the Democrats or the Tories.
But, we are not there yet ... there has not been enough killing to satisfy those who live over the hills and far away.
I expect it will end up ... maybe in 2 years time as the Democrats and the Tories grapple with their electoral prospects ... with Ukraine being forced to give up some land for guarantees of protection from the US/West.
Good post It's easy to be gung ho about war when we are not doing the fighting and tens of thousands of Ukrainians are dying How would we like it if Manchester was completely destroyed for example as Mariupol has been
The stupid North Vietnamese could have saved so much pain and suffering by surrendering, couldn’t they?
We solved the land-for-peace issue the other day, anyway. The Ukrainians keep their land. Any other country that wants a land-for-peace deal gives Russia some land.
Which bits of Wales should we give them?
It was not the North Vietnamese that were sustained by American weapons. It was the South Vietnamese.
Only a moron could come up with such a stupid analogy. Time for you to start some insane babbling about White Australia?
And yes, the South Vietnamese should have surrendered. They did after all in the end, once the US got bored.
North Vietnam was entirely sustained by Russian and Chinese weapons. There was a reason it was called a proxy war.
Comments
I never understand the point of "secret questions" as a lot of the time they just create GDPR or security problems if answered truthfully.
I always give a long nonsense answer and note it down (encrypted).
Which of the following is the biggest threat to western civilisation as we know it? Is it:
a) Putin apologists / the RMT
b) The Woke
c) The BBC
e) All of the above?
I miss the days when I could have included d) Meghan Markle, but she seems to have slipped off the radar now - hence no d).
I mean, can't fault them for successfully keeping it mega-secure. No-one unauthorised is getting in. It's just that it's considered sporting to allow the account owner to log in. Especially when you've emailed them asking them to log in.
It is a cunning twist on the secret question --> secret answer method. Omit the question.
I did have a number of very difficult exams back in the day, but I can confidently say that an exam where they didn't bother with the questions and still expected very specific answers would have beaten the lot. Could arguably have been seen as unfair, however.
Thanks to both of you for the pictures - makes a nice change from anonymous posters arguing about each other's attitudes.
I posted the other day I like chopping wood when frustrated and having dealt with them I needed a forest. Since then it had got more frustrating. I have only just had to deal with them because my wife retired and as I am already retired we have gone from a high income (so little dealing with them) to next to nothing. We have to prove our income and some of what they want is impossible. They just cater for the norm and not people who have less normal income.
Yes, rail drivers are well recompensed although they have to spend quite a bit of time training for it before being able to drive solo. The husband of one of my wife’s co workers is currently training to be a metro driver in the north east. It’s around 2 years to train.
Tube drivers are very well recompensed too.
However the drivers are a small portion of the workers employed in rail and represented by the RMT.
I hope they can come to an agreement without resorting to strike action.
I spent 30+ years in a school environment where bullying was a big ongoing issue. It usually existed because there were two types of students, a group who were different, or had "issues", such as ADHD or aspergers, or home issues. The other type were students who bullied them due to their differences. We spent many years trying and succeeding sometimes in getting the bullies to become aware of other people and their problems, sometimes called tolerence. I suppose you could call that becoming more woke. Those who never accepted or became tolerent were the worst kind of bully. There are a lot of people like that on here.
I would never take it as an insult to be called woke.
Edit: I should have said 3 types, the third type had nothing to do with bullying.
Q: Is this a question?
A: If that is a question, then this is an answer.
Anyway:
First school?
First car?
By the time you've finished they'll be able to log in to all your bank accounts.
In order to get authorised to reset your secret answer, they need to know two characters... from your secret answer.
Head. Desk.
Of course, such courses and the people who organise, implement and track them are regularly decried in the right wing media as woke.
That and captchas with l/1 or 0/o in them.
It's a bit like the secret question, but it's a secret answer.
After the election, the correct answer is obvious. It isn't always beforehand.
Giving the electorate an identical answer twice in a row rarely works.
Kinda.
I tried the reset thing again and when it got to the "give two characters from your secret answer in order to reset your secret answer" part, I just waited silently, they asked again, I lost my temper and ranted at an automated voice. I'm not proud, but somehow it worked: it patiently explained that the secret answer was the one I gave them when I registered (over a decade ago) and was the answer to the question "What is the name of the place where you first met your partner?"
I would not have guessed that in a thousand tries.
Now, I merely have to wait thirty minutes because I'm locked out of my account due to having answered too many incorrect attempts.
Oh well no ceasefire then.
That's why airline pilots are paid a fortune.
Feels like No10 want us to think @BorisJohnson met Sue Gray because he was ambushed by his diary. https://twitter.com/RidgeOnSunday/status/1528282880757190657
It all has the feel of a partywho have simply in power for so long that they've lost sight of how the public will view them.
This focus group in Wakefield suggests that voters want a change, even if it is an unexciting one (like Australians?)
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/boris-johnson-tory-mps-back-focus-groups-voters-done-with-pm-1641254
Now how much the government knows what the general effectiveness of working from home is they must by now have a pretty good idea about how government departments are affected by working from home.
If its negatively so then they have every right, indeed a responsibility, to restrict working from home.
What other organisations do is up to themselves to sort out.
Speaking personally I would do less work and do it less effectively if I worked from home.
How many others are like that ?
Don't know but its a three part division:
1) Those who work less effectively at home and are honest about it
2) Those who work less effectively at home but lie about it
3) Those who work as effectively at home
I won, the prize being a chocolate Easter egg. Not sure Trotsky would have approved.
After a lengthy explanation of how the flat numbers work in my tenement it looks like I've avoided the fine... shambles.
Slightly odd, because swifts are often higher.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/05/21/all-female-tory-shortlist-tiverton-honiton-by-election-porn/
We still regularly get posts on pb.com exulting (ugh) about Russian deaths. It is in the nature of war that Ukrainian deaths will be comparable to Russian deaths.
We can look forward to a Vietnam War on Europe's doorstep at this rate.
At some point, it will dawn on Biden & Johnson that a massive war, a tragic & ongoing refugee crisis, economic sanctions that hurt everyones' economy, together with major famines in a number of poor countries, are not going to help the re-election chances of either the Democrats or the Tories.
But, we are not there yet ... there has not been enough killing to satisfy those who live over the hills and far away.
I expect it will end up ... maybe in 2 years time as the Democrats and the Tories grapple with their electoral prospects ... with Ukraine being forced to give up some land for guarantees of protection from the US/West.
Would suggest a pretty terrible workplace or a worker with health issues.
And then there is the question of workspace. Moving from a crowded and noisy open-plan office to a converted spare bedroom overlooking the garden is not the same as transitioning from a dedicated, air-conditioned office to the kitchen table in a crowded flat scrabbling for space with a partner and two home-schooling children.
Worst rail disaster in UK ascribed to driver error* = Harrow and Wealdstone 1952, 112 dead.
Dr Shipman: 218 ++
* albeit in patchy fog. Mind, 'driver error' is often an iffy verdict ...
On the woke thing, something is being forgotten. Involvement in causes can come from a number of different personal er….. viewpoints.
Some people seek out a Perfect Moral Position, from where they can lecture and harass others. The history of religion is full of such people. The actual belief structure seems to be relatively unimportant - just that they are The Good and therefore they are justified in mindless hate.
Then you have the grifters - making money of the latest religion.
Right at the back, you have the people actually effected by the issue, very often.
Of course, the sane behaviour is compromise. But compromise is forbidden by the nature of fundamentalist belief.
Remember, though, that it might still be worth taking a hit on output per office worker. After all, the cost of a desk space is non-trivial, especially in Central London. See the recent fiasco at the Department for Education, where demanding everyone return to the office meant that there weren't enough desks for everyone.
And if remote/hybrid work is seen as attractive by employees, that eventually means that non-remote work becomes something employers have to pay a premium for.
Now it is possible that Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg have gone through the calculations and concluded that a return to the office is the right thing to do. Of course, it'spossible, but is it really that likely?
(I myself do know lots of farmers are women - there was actually a rather good photo and text essay in the Graun on precisely that recently.)
But it should be pretty apparent now how effective working from home is for both worker and employer.
Where its positive for both it should continue and where negative for both should stop.
Where its positive for one but negative for the other it becomes contentious.
Nor did I find much to enjoy about the extra £150 a month heating bills during the winter months.
My employer was laughing, though.
Some kinds of work is perfectly suited for WFH - and has its management metrics all setup. Agile software development, for example.
Other jobs haven’t had metrics and management tools setup. Others again require collaboration in ways that don’t work well remotely.
I think that there are a large chunk of jobs which could be done as WFH, but would require major changes in organisations and working practises to make it happen.
Is anyone going to guess "Tsiroanomandidy39"??
And its on this 'narrow' evaluation that decisions on working from home are likely to be made.
The long term 'wider' positives or negatives can only be speculated on at present.
ETA of course you are right that most decisions will be based on the short term, and perhaps even more on personal convenience and prejudice. Ask Jacob Rees-Mogg!
A computer would have to go through a practically infinite number of variations of letters and numbers before cracking it
The best realistic offer that I can see is that the Greens wouldn't contest key marginals, in return for being given a clear run in some county and district council wards. That would benefit everyone involved - Lab/LD by having a better shot at marginals, Greens by building up a solid infrastructure of local strength as a base for future advances. And there will be council seats that the Greens can win where the other parties can't, by appealing to environmental ex-Tories, a bit like the Teals in Australia.
But it's a complicated deal to pull off, and simply campaigning on "only we can beat the Tories" in the marginals may be the easier solution for Lab and LD candidates. Green voters are massively un-Tory, as the poll shows (only 6% would even *consider* voting Tory), and if a Tory seat is obviously marginal and there's a clear challenger, I'd think that 80% of the Green vote should be possible to borrow, with appropriate tact and respect.
But you highlight one of the contentious areas - where its in the interest of an organisation that employees work from home but not in the interests of the employees.
I suspect that long term we will see a drift to organisations which want working from home having a workforce which wants to work from home. And vice versa.
Getting to that final goal will involve much inconvenience for many employers and employees in upcoming years.
So they have a list of ALL the placenames in the world, right down to tiny hamlets (like this). That must be many millions of places. Hundreds of millions?
So they can run through all of those - plus every single other word or name - and then combine each with three numbers, and get each of these digits in the right order?
Does that not take years? And a ridiculous, unaffordable amount of computing power? It seems near-impossible to me
But I am happy to be schooled! My work is done for the day and I am heading down to the waterside for a vino
Is it worth pointing this out to a local Councillor, which in the circs may well get it prioritised.
I've been watching my young 6x year old neighbour up his scaffolding, then a ladder, powerwashing his roof from *above* the last couple of days (which is the only way to do it). Not something I do.
We solved the land-for-peace issue the other day, anyway. The Ukrainians keep their land. Any other country that wants a land-for-peace deal gives Russia some land.
Which bits of Wales should we give them?
Name of Farm
Name of Town
County
Postcode.
No road or street in sight.
That's the difference between non-Woke and Woke. Fairness not ideology.
Not hard, is it?
Ideally, I'd like to do emails in three batches, morning, lunch, and mid-late afternoon, and then to free to focus on my work and meetings. But I have two dozen twenty-somethings who constantly want to ask me questions.
I think more likely that both Arsenal and Spurs lose...
And I expect some will one day be caught out by different employment laws and tax issues in different countries (or even states in the US, for instance). I'm sceptical that some 20-person start-up really has an HR department that is up to speed on this. Is your Glasgow WFH-er on English or Scottish PAYE rates, for instance? Is the chap in Berlin protected by German anti-age discrimination law?
I sent them a bank statement dated July 2011.
They sent a reply, handwritten, requesting one less then three months old.
I sent them a further handwritten reply, plus information on WEA adult literacy courses in Glasgow.
I can believe it - I have an under ten minute commute and that's a big advantage to both me and my employer.
The changes caused by the disruption from covid are fascinating and often very individual.
The long term effects we can only guess at.
Fortunately most systems slow down password tries and lock accounts after x tries now. Most.
The hack often used at the moment is to steal passwords from one site. Since many use an email address as the ID, and many many people reuse the same password…. Such a cache enables the hackers to try accessing accounts at all the popular sites.
The latest wrinkle is identifying how people change their passwords - a number at the end, incrementing is very common. So the automated hacking setup recognise this and tries “ComplicatedPassword46” then “ComplicatedPassword47”…..
Now, there's a left-wing herd. You can see it in the types of people that post, the volume of those posts and what they like.
I don't blame them. This Conservative government is on its way out, so it's natural. If you'd come on here in 2009-2010 it basically felt like a Tory site. The only dissenters were Jonathan, Southam and Tim and a few Lib Dems.
If people are on the up and feel like things are heading their way they will post more often and more enthusiastically. If not, they will keep quiet and keep their heads down.
Only a moron could come up with such a stupid analogy. Time for you to start some insane babbling about White Australia?
And yes, the South Vietnamese should have surrendered. They did after all in the end, once the US got bored.
Everything else is noise.
It drives me crackers. And I have a short attention span as it is, so I'm easily distracted.